Volodymyr Zelenskyi inspects the state of Subcarpathian roads
The newly-elected President of Ukraine paid his first working visit to Ivano-Frankivsk region. Volodymyr Zelenskyi inspected the infamous flood-swept bridge over the Chechva river near the village of Dovhe Kaluske, Kalush district. The community is still missing 25 million UAH for all necessary repairs of the bridge. According to the local officials, the funds will be allocated and by the end of the year the process will be resumed.
There are more than fifty similar bridges in the region being destroyed by floods. The approximate repair budgets for all those infrastructure exceed 610 million UAH.
"The sum isn't that large, however, it will tremendously help to develop the progress in the region", - concluded the newly-appointed Ivano-Frankivsk Regional State Administration chairman, Denys Shmyhal, in his report.
In addition to these bridges, they also want to restore other ferriages. From the total of 1200 local bridges and ferriages, 800 are in an emergency state or inappropriate condition. According to Mr. Shmyhal, if done step by step, the repair tempo could reach 10-12 bridges a year. Since 2009, only 3 ferriages out of 60 have been restored to proper conditions.
At the same time, Volodymyr Zelenskyi estimated that it would take 85 years to restore all the river ferriages in the region, according to such a plan.
"85 years to repair 850 bridges in the region? - Neither we, nor locals have that much time", - said Mr. President.
The People's Deputy of Ukraine Oleksandr Shevchenko also presented his vision of the case.
“We're missing more than 20 billion UAH for the purpose of road and bridge repairs in the region. Considering the weak state of our national treasury, such amounts are obviously not available. In order to make the Carpathian region attractive for tourists in a short time, I propose that we initiate a regional municipal enterprise, which would "take care" of region's natural resources, like we have in Volyn. Local communities should receive half the profits from the mineral resources extraction. Then in 5 years we will be able to accumulate money for those repairs".
