Repair of all roads in Ukraine will take 2.7 trillion hryvnias and about 20 years - expert

It will take about 2.7 trillion hryvnias and about 20 years to repair all the roads in Ukraine.

Viktor Medvid, director of the William Invest Expert consulting company, told this in a commentary to GolosUA.

"Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said that within 3-5 years the state will be able to repair all roads in the country. I would like to note that this is a program that focuses not on all roads, but on key interregional roads. This is a small percentage of roads. We are talking about emergency repairs. If we talk about major repairs and expansion of construction, the budget he announced will be enough only for 20%. To repair all the roads in the country to a high level, it will take about 2.7 trillion hryvnias and about 20 years. This is possible within our GDP, if the policy is aimed not only at spending money on road construction, but also at building the relevant infrastructure. In particular, construction equipment and relevant enterprises - modern factories. Speaking of operational resources, the state needed to allocate about UAH 500 billion in operational resources for this project. If this money were to function all the time and excise taxes and other deductions were to go there, 500 billion hryvnias would be enough," Medved said.

According to him, the country's leadership has a mismanaged attitude to road repairs.

"Currently, most of the money goes abroad to manufacturers of components for road repairs and machinery. At the moment, we have a mismanaged attitude of the country's leadership to road repairs. Projects are successfully imitated, and then the repaired roads have defects a year later. For example, in Kirovograd region, defects that were supposed to appear in the 5th or 6th year of operation appeared 12 months later. In addition, many roads are unfinished. They have no drainage systems, but instead have a number of defects that should not exist. In addition, there is a large corruption burden. Most contractors hire staff, including unqualified laborers, and pay them in black money. They also often bring in foreigners to work and thus simply withdraw money abroad," Mr. Medved summarized.

This year, Ukraine has budgeted a record amount for road repairs. This was announced on Facebook by Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman.

"This year we will clearly delineate responsibility for road maintenance," he wrote.

123 thousand km is the length of local roads. This is the direct responsibility of regional state administrations. 35% of the total amount of the Road Fund will be allocated for assistance, the Prime Minister said.

46,985 km is the length of roads of national importance. This is the direct responsibility of Ukravtodor. For this purpose, 60% of the Road Fund is allocated.

The Prime Minister also noted that 250 thousand kilometers is the length of roads in settlements. This is the direct responsibility of local authorities, primarily municipalities.