The main aspects of reorganisation of the councils included in Volyn amalgamated hromadas were described during a training seminar held in Lutsk on 28 November. The event was organised by the Volyn Local Government Development Centre, established with the support of the U-LEAD with Europe programme and MinRegion.

Anatoliy Parkhomyuk, director of the Volyn LGDC, emphasised three important points in his welcoming speech: the first sessions of amalgamated hromadas, reorganisation of councils, and AH budgets. “Funds are the blood of your hromadas,” said the expert and appealed to the representatives of the hromadas of the region to actively attend various trainings from the Volyn LGDC.

Tetyana Lytvynenko, director of the Volyn Oblast centre for retraining and advanced training of employees of the state authorities, local government bodies, state enterprises, institutions and organisations, emphasised the teamwork. She urged the hromadas not to spend time in vain, not to remain in isolation from the rest of the world, and take advantage of every training opportunity offered by the Volyn LGDC, as there are not so many practical experts in the Volyn Oblast willing to share their knowledge.

Andriy Pohorilyi, lawyer of the Volyn LGDC, informed on the preparation of the transfer act and its approval, state registration of the termination of councils included in the AH, as legal entities, personnel issues and service in local self-government bodies. He presented a detailed description of the documents envisaging councils’ reorganisation. “It is not necessary to take preliminary samples from AHs, established earlier, as legislation was henceforth amended".

The lawyer stressed that the story is not about elimination of the councils that accessed AHs, but namely about the reorganisation through accession. The process of filling in employment-record books was also discussed during the training seminar. “Legislator has simplified a lot, but responsibility is not removed,” said Andriy Pohorilyi.

Svitlana Naumuk, head of the planned financial work sector and chief accountant of the regional office of the State Property Fund of Ukraine in the Volyn Oblast, told AH representatives about the inventory of documents, property, assets and liabilities of the reorganised councils. Besides, during the training workshop, the AH representatives learned to fill in a variety of forms and applications.