The history of road repair unexpectedly stalled. Now the repairs really necessary for Ukraine cannot begin due to the lobbying of the cartelists.

... In early August, the Ukrainian authorities began to feel that it was time to spend money on road repairs. The first military fear has passed, the destroyed roads and bridges at critical points really need to be repaired to transport food, fuel and weapons. Moreover, the first hints already appeared that foreign allies would finally begin to give us dollars and euros in the amount necessary for the existence of Ukraine..

Money faucet for Ukravtodor turned off a little. For the first half of August, its contractors received about UAH 700 million. Far from pre-war times, when such amounts were sometimes paid for one day of the “Great Construction”, but, nevertheless, twice as much as Ukravtodor could pay its contractors in June and July (see. rice.

This means that the authorities began to prepare a legislative field for the return of dehydrated accounts of the road builders.

Even at the beginning of the invasion, the Verkhovna Rada adopted two decisions. One was determined that the money of the Road Fund should first of all be directed to the armament and maintenance of old loans from Ukravtodor. And the second - the excise tax on fuel, from which the Road Fund was mainly filled, was canceled. So that the rise in prices does not press so hard on motorists.

It is clear that there was almost nothing to share, and this summer Ukravtodor gave very limited money for roads to patch up destroyed sections of roads and bridges. It was about sums of several hundred million for the whole of Ukraine per month - insignificant pennies. And Bankovaya made a political decision - to return excise taxes to replenish the Road Fund and direct money from it not for armaments, but for infrastructure.

Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov began to draw up the relevant bills in early August, and in the middle of the month they ended up in the Rada. If everything were normal, they would have been voted quickly, already in September the excise tax would have returned to the price of fuel, and Ukravtodor would have increased the flow of money for really necessary repairs of roads and bridges. According to the forecast of the initiators, it was about UAH 3.6 billion per month. A little compared to the “Big Construction”, when 10 billion hryvnias were spent monthly on asphalting at a rate of 28 hryvnias per dollar, but at least something.

But it would not be Ukraine if everything went fine. Therefore, it is already September, and the law has not yet been adopted, and at best, the money will begin to flow somewhere in mid-October, when the construction season will already end.

Two main reasons for failure.

#1. Money not for destroyed bridges, but for asphalt margin for corrupt envelopes?

The Ministry of Infrastructure just gave grounds for suspicion by classifying the list of objects that are going to be repaired for excise taxes. Because it is one thing when money goes to blown up and destroyed fifty bridges in the liberated North of Ukraine and the front-line territories of the East and South. And the other thing is when the collected billions will be spent on convenient asphalting by convenient contractors in convenient places at convenient estimates.. Relatively speaking, the restoration of a bridge in the Chernihiv region is much clearer than asphalting a road somewhere in the Vinnytsia region or in the suburbs of the Dnieper.

To a direct question from Ekonomicheskaya Pravda about the key objects for restoration, Alexander Kubrakov answered as follows: “They already exist. Some are approved by government decree"

But this list is not publicly available.. Therefore, there is only one opportunity to learn at least something - " And the picture isn't quite the same..

In August, road services announced purchases for road repairs for UAH 390 million. Only one concerns the de-occupied Sumy region. The largest contracts are a big road in the suburbs of the Dnieper. The rest are bridges and roads that were not damaged by the enemy (see. table. And almost all - to the same favorites of Ukravtodor, who in recent years shared the margin of the "

Thus, outside observers have a quite reasonable question: “Maybe it’s just the “Great stealing” being resumed to replenish the shallow cash desk, from which before the war salary envelopes were distributed to government servants.?

But the road cartel and the black cash for people's deputies are only part of the problem, and this story is not the main one right now.. Maybe contracts for the restoration of bridges really destroyed by the war will be made public later..

Fuel industry lobbyists are more to blame for the failure of a quick start on bridge repairs.

#2. Excise redistribution of the market.

Before the invasion, excises on fuel in Ukraine were as follows: gasoline - 2.13 euros per liter, diesel fuel - 1.39 euros, liquefied gas - 0.52 euros.

That is, buyers of cheap autogas paid a lower excise tax than " This was in line with global trends, since it is believed that gas is put on a car not from a good life.. Autogas does not give such traction as " Thus, governments by lower excise taxes on autogas make road transport more accessible to different segments of the population.. A car is not a luxury, but a means of transportation.

But for large fuel sellers, this is a problem.. The margin on autogas is only UAH 1–2 per liter. And the difference between the wholesale and retail prices of gasoline and diesel fuel now exceeds UAH 10 per liter.. That is, selling "

Therefore, when the authorities decided to return the excise tax, “someone” decided that it should be returned not in the old proportion, but in the amount of 1 euro for each type of fuel. This would lead to the fact that autogas at a price of UAH 28 and diesel fuel at a price of UAH 54 would have to rise by the same 4 hryvnias.. In percentage terms, this means that autogas would have risen in price by 15%, and diesel fuel by only 7%.. Taking into account the fact that a car needs more gas to cover the same distance than diesel fuel, the price shock for the already not very rich consumer of autogas would be greater than for the average " This means that prerequisites would be created for the flow of consumers from the gas to the oil sector of automotive fuel. The beneficiaries of this process would be large suppliers of " Their gas stations are known to every motorist.

Of course, the overt lobbying to increase the income of one group of businessmen caused resistance from the autogas industry, which is simply being stripped for the sake of competitors.. And politicians who are well aware of which segments of the population are being hit for the sake of toxic asphalt. Discussions began, and the bill with the same excises on August 16 could not be put on the agenda, even the “servants of the people” themselves did not add votes.

The scandal led to a search for a way out. Servants of the People drafted bill No. 7668-d, in which excise rates were already different - 1 euro per liter of diesel fuel and gasoline and 0.5 euros per liter of autogas. But it didn’t work out quickly again, because people’s deputies submitted thousands of amendments to this bill and to No. 7669 (it allows spending money not on weapons, but on asphalt), and now it will take another week to process them. People's Deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak predicts that as a result, excises and money to the Road Fund for the repair of bridges will return in October at best. At the end of the building season.

And everything could be completely different....

Read more articles by Yuri Nikolov at the link.

[votes id\u003d"