The Kyiv City Council's published draft resolution "On the Kyiv City Budget for 2015" fails to include substantiated proposals to increase the capital's budget by at least UAH 430 million. The Kyiv City State Administration significantly underestimated the projected revenues from parking fees and advertising. Kyiv officials also appear to have no intention of advocating for increased land rent revenues.
Maxim Goldarb, head of the public organization Public Audit, reported this to KV.
According to him, the Public Audit agency conducted a detailed analysis of the planned revenue sources and determined that the proposed budget completely fails to account for revenue options, including parking, advertising, and land lease. Overall, the budget amounts to at least UAH 430 million.
Thus, the Kyiv City State Administration plans to collect only UAH 30 million in revenue from parking fees for vehicles.
"Public Audit has repeatedly drawn the capital's leadership's attention to the fact that this is a monthly figure, not an annual one. Parking revenue should certainly generate more than 10 times more for the city budget—360 million hryvnias per year," Goldarb stated.
Moreover, the draft Kyiv city budget for 2015 envisages advertising revenues of only 110 million UAH.
Moreover, according to a study by Public Audit, in just the first 9 months of 2014, the capital’s city budget received 125,8 million hryvnias for advertising services.
"That is, the draft 2015 budget includes indicators that are lower than even the previous year. In practice, the capital should receive at least 200 million hryvnias from advertising by revising tariffs and combating illegal advertising," asserts Maksym Goldarb.
He also emphasized that the projected capital budget underestimates the expected revenue from land fees by almost half: from 4,3 billion UAH (the Kyiv City Council decision on the Kyiv city budget for 2014) to 2,3 billion UAH (in the projected budget for 2015).
"These planned revenues are most likely based on last year's figures (the actual revenue from land revenues was 1,8 billion hryvnias), but tax rates haven't been reduced, and the number of land leases hasn't changed significantly. So, instead of budgeting for actual figures, officials are significantly underestimating them, while the enormous debt for this tax only grows annually, and there are no effective steps to collect it," the expert noted.
According to the public organization, the proposed project also fails to address key proposals for additional ways to fund the capital's budget, even though Public Audit, as a public overseer of public finances, has submitted a number of such initiatives.
However, as KV previously reported, Kyiv's leadership appears to have no intention of cutting corners on government officials' salaries.
Oleksiy Rudenko, KyivVlast
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