As Maksym Martynyuk, First Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, said at the conference “Decentralisation, Land Management and Development of Hromadas”, organised by the USAID Project “Agriculture and Rural Development Support” (ARDS) and the All-Ukrainian Association of Village and Settlement Councils, the transfer of powers to dispose of land outside settlements to amalgamated hromadas will strengthen their institutional capacity and form an economic and fair model of land use.

“Currently, there is no alternative to the transfer of land management powers to the ground. It is necessary not only in view of the national focus on decentralisation, but also for the formation of a transparent structure of land relations,” said the First Deputy Minister.

In the course of Ukraine’s independence, various forms of distribution of powers in the field of land relations were implemented, in particular through the State Land Agency, rayon state administrations, which demonstrated a high corruption component and / or inefficiency.

He also reminded that a number of draft laws were registered in the Parliament, proposing in various editions to resolve the issue of transfer of land management powers to AHs, but none of them has still been voted. “Given the high social significance and submission of the presidential draft law number 7363, we hope that a powerful impetus will be given to this issue,” said Maksym Martynyuk.

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In Ukraine, 665 amalgamated hromadas (AHs) have already been established with their total area amounting to 161 108 km2 and 5.7 million residents living there, of which almost two thirds are rural population.

366 AHs, that have already switched to direct relations with the State Budget, had UAH 4.1 billion of their budget funds balance (general + special fund) as of 1 October 2017. The land fee in the revenues of these AHs amounted to almost 16% over 9 months of 2017.