Kim says he will do everything possible to keep water tariffs from being raised from the new water pipeline

Head of Mykolaiv Regional Military Administration Vitalii Kim, photo by NikVesti

The head of the Mykolaiv Regional Military Administration, Vitalii Kim, has promised to do everything to ensure that the tariff for centralised drinking water supply for Mykolaiv residents does not increase.

He said this during a press conference dedicated to the final work for 2025, according to NikVesti.

As you know, the water utility said that after the launch of new treatment facilities, the water tariff for Mykolaiv could be up to 100 hryvnias per cubic metre. However, during martial law, it is forbidden to raise the tariff for the population.

Nevertheless, Vitalii Kim said that his task is to ensure that the water tariff for the population does not increase and is not expensive.

«I don't want the tariff to go up. My task is to make sure that water is not expensive for people, and I will use any tools to prevent this from happening — even the most unlikely ones. One of the key points here is the water utility. I don't agree that all the bad decisions of the water utility's management, or overheads, or any other things will be passed on to people in the tariff. The state has now built a new water supply system. It needs to be maintained at some cost. There is electricity, there is a solar panel, which will reduce this cost. We transferred this water to Mykolaiv at a cost. And if, for example, it costs 30 hryvnias there, and the rest to purify and deliver it costs 70 hryvnias, then this is bad. We need to ensure that it is used in the most efficient way. That is why I am attacking the water utility to keep the water tariff as low as possible, so that they don't put anything in it to compensate for their wrong decisions. That's why the water utility and quality control will be a separate issue,» said Vitalii Kim.

Read also the article NikVesti «When will Mykolaiv get drinking water in the taps and how much will it cost?».

As a reminder, new water treatment facilities for centralised water supply in Mykolaiv are being built at the expense of funds saved during the construction of a new water supply system. The purified water is expected to be launched in January, but the water treatment plant will be fully operational in March 2026.

Initially, Mykolaiv planned to take out an EIB loan for the construction of the new water treatment plant, with Denmark providing the remaining part as a grant. The project was supposed to take several years to implement and was supposed to help provide the city with water of European standards.

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But later, Serhii Sukhomlyn, head of the State Agency for Reconstruction, said that this idea was abandoned. And it was decided to build new water treatment facilities at public expense — the money saved during the construction of a new water supply system for the city.

However, the mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Sienkevych, supports the modernisation of the new water treatment plant with a loan from the European Investment Bank, but believes that the state should pay for it.

A water supply system for Mykolaiv. A little history

It has been more than three years since Russian troops damaged the water pipeline that supplied Mykolaiv with water. Since then, the city of almost half a million people has been without a centralised supply of quality water.

All this time, Mykolaiv residents have been receiving water from a backup source, which raises many questions about the quality of such water and the salt content in its composition. The salt water damaged 1,200 kilometres of the city's water supply network. Borys Dudenko, director of «Mykolaivvodokanal», said that it is impossible to replace the entire length of the network that was damaged by the salt water supply.

For a long time, representatives of state and local authorities have been looking for ways to restore drinking water supply in Mykolaiv. The final solution was found in 2024: a new water supply line would be laid from Nova Odesa, and the money was allocated from the state budget.

The regional recovery service even selected contractors who will work according to the principle of «design-build». They are three companies, each of which is responsible for one of the three work areas: «Ukrtransmist», «Rostdorstroi» and «Avtostrada». However, later both the client and the construction contractor were changed. The customer for the new water pipeline was the Service for Infrastructure Restoration and Development in Dnipropetrovsk region, and the contractor was the group of companies «Avtostrada».