Loan for Social Consciousness
Constructing paramedic stations, reconstructing educational institutions, improving water supply, roads repairing — these and many other things are to improve the quality of social service and public utilities for communities in the village and small cities (with population under 50,000), Minister of Labor and Social Policy Mykhailo Papiyev informed at last Tuesday’s press conference in Kyiv. Moreover, in his opinion, solving urgent problems of territorial communities will be accompanied with raising their social activity, the latter being “an integral part of a civil society.” Thus, this to a certain extent ambiguous fact (to achieve the goals mentioned above, Ukraine is going to take a $50.21 million loan from the World Bank, $ 9.97 million from the state budget, and another 9.91 million communities were proposed to collect themselves) was treated in an unexpected way.
Obviously, it is impossible to solve the problem of the insufficient infrastructure in Ukrainian countryside with $70 million even if the money would be used solely for this purpose due to its big-scale and ubiquitous nature. Mr. Papiyev stressed that territorial communities were proposed to define priorities for financing themselves and pointed out that the project will be implemented on tender basis (meaning that communities will send their applications on the basis of which a decision will be made to whom the money will be channeled).
There is no need to explain to what extent such an approach to solving regional problems using loans which taxpayers will have to pay out is grounded. The Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, major executor of the Social Investment in Ukraine program, did not comment on the profitability of those investments. However, as it became known to The Day, they are making plans and holding negotiations with the World Bank on further creating economic projects on the basis of social ones.
However, there is no doubt about the appropriateness of “activating civil consciousness.” The Ukrainian Fund for Social Investment created by Ukrainian government on April 28, 2000 to implement such programs is designed for carrying out 750 to 900 tender projects in six years. According to the statistics quoted by Mr. Papiyev when asked by The Day’s correspondent, 81 territorial communities have already confirmed their interest in the project in deed by collecting 750,000 hryvnias, the minimum needed for obtaining WB loan. Another 93 communities appeared to be ready to “take part in the project.”
World Bank’s Director for Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova commented on the situation, “Of course we’ll have to look how this project is carried out in its central phase (so far only pilot ones have been implemented — Auth.). However, the project is composed so that it envisages open participation of all communities’ representatives with no exception... Besides, the Fund will carry out small projects. We have no intention to finance big-scale highways repairing. Funds are channeled to the poor communities.” Mr. Papiyev willingly joined the comment: “If the project was carried out in a single zone, some administrative factors could affect it... The program will be executed transparently, publicly, and without any pressure. This will supply it with addition rate of protection against misuses we all know of.” The project’s organizers claim that all members of the territorial communities will be admitted to discuss and monitor implementing some or other tasks in practice. Incidentally, communities members have collected 2% of the loan sum themselves.
