President at the Regional Development Council in Cherkasy region: We must protect decentralization

At the Cherkasy Regional Development Council President Petro Poroshenko stressed the importance of continuing the decentralization reform and warned against the possibility of its closing up.

The Head of State stressed that his initiative had been a decentralization program. He reminded that the program had been supported by the Government, Verkhovna Rada and thanked for the teamwork. With the adoption of the law on decentralization power and responsibility was transferred to the communities.

He noted that responsibility without resources was a deception. “Therefore, together with responsibility, we transferred the relevant financial resource. It’s fair. Now in the consolidated budget, finally, after calculating subsidies and subventions, the share of local budgets exceeds the share of the state budget. Communities development budgets have increased 7, 10, somewhere 16-18 times. And that’s during the war,” he said.

“What does this mean for communities? We have once and for all abandoned the position that only Kyiv knows what the community needs,” the Head of State said.

Petro Poroshenko added that at the meetings across the whole Ukraine he sees that communities can now make their own decisions, not only solve hot issues. “Communities finally see the prospect,” he said, noting that communities are creating development strategies and defining strategic goals. “Do not be afraid to set great goals … Achieve the impossible to get the desired,” the President noted.

“Decentralization is an opportunity and the right of every citizen to make the decisions about the life of his community. It is an opportunity and the right to plan the life and change it where the community intervention is required. This is finally a reduction in the distance between the man and the government,” the President also stressed.

“But in order for changes to become irreversible, we need to remind people what is being decided now. A significant part of the success of decentralization is caused by the position of our team. There are politicians whose style is manual control from top to bottom. They want to change the situation and this means returning everything back,” the President said.

“We must confront this threat. We must protect communities and decentralization,” Petro Poroshenko said.

“Why decentralization is so important? Where do we want to come from decentralization? Decentralization is a country without periphery. This is a country of free, prosperous and happy people,” the President stressed.

Also, Petro Poroshenko noted that the association of territorial communities should be completed. “People are suffering from your laziness and indecision. And I, as President elected by the people, cannot admit that. Therefore, I will do my best for the united communities to participate in the local elections in 2020,” he stressed.

“When our team started the process of decentralization we faced severe criticism. What is it? What are you talking about? How can this be? Not only me, many in this room remember all this. Today, we already have concrete results. And these results are our answer to the critics. And most importantly – this is our answer to the people’s aspirations,” Petro Poroshenko summed up.