Have you ever thought about how many things lose their meaning if they are not timely? Festive toasts, especially if they are not trivial, are something pleasant and joyful. However, no one pronounces them, for example, at the hospital bed of a seriously ill person. Candy is tasty and positive. Nevertheless, imagine the reaction of a diabetic, who is offered these sweets.
Somewhat similar is now happening with budget expenditures for repairs, reconstruction, and even construction of sports grounds. This year administrations, councils, state-owned enterprises and various organizations spent hundreds of millions of hryvnias on construction and repairs. Are such expenditures appropriate, and most importantly, timely during a major war? The issue is debatable, but this debate changes direction dramatically, when you learn that customers also overpay for these facilities. Moreover, when there is an overpayment, there is someone’s interest. It turns out that for some these expenses are still “just in time”.
In mid-September, the Construction Department of the Cherkasy Regional State Administration announced a tender for the completion of the reconstruction of the Shakhtar stadium in the city of Vatutine. They were ready to spend 13.7 million hryvnias on the sports arena, which is located in a settlement with 16,000 inhabitants.
In Kamianka-Buzka, in the Lviv region, over 117 million was given for the second attempt to build a sports complex, which is suitable both for track and field athletes and for holding competitions and trainings in game sports. The premises will be built “from scratch”, completing all necessary works by the end of 2024.
During the war, they also decided to complete the multifunctional sports complex of the Hryshkovetska gymnasium, located in the village of Hryshkivka, Zhytomyr region. For 28.3 million hryvnias, the settlement, with a little over 4,000 inhabitants, will receive a complex with football, basketball and volleyball fields, a gymnastics ground, running tracks and several stands for almost 400 people.
Moreover, while there are rallies in Odesa, Kyiv, Kryvyi Rih and other cities, demanding not to spend budget money on ill-timed million-dollar extravagances, individual officials continue to order the construction of stadiums. Therefore, we have no choice but to control such purchases and create a public outcry. We would like to believe that this would be enough to instill in the heads of officials the thesis that during the war everything should go either to the front or for the front. The rest could be done later.