Deputies doubt the possibility of installing a restroom for a million this year

The Standing Committee on Planning, Budget and Finance has considered reducing budget expenditures for the Service Center utility company for 2025.

According to the chairman of the commission, Oleksii Potapskyi, the issue is the installation of an automatic public restroom with a universal cabin for wheelchair users.

As of November 14, the restroom had not yet been delivered to the utility company, so the deputies doubted that the utility would have time to install it this year. Therefore, they proposed to reallocate the UAH 1 million 498 thousand allocated for this restroom to a special budget fund.

In addition, when preparing documents for the procurement of services for the installation and commissioning of automatic public restrooms with connection to existing utilities and landscaping of the adjacent territory, it was discovered that the restroom is a structure with a foundation and connection to municipal utilities (water supply, sewerage, electricity) and is considered a construction project, i.e. capital expenditures.

In turn, Zurab Shoniya, director of the Service Center utility company, denied that the installation could be completed this year.

"We talked to the contractor. This toilet is already ready. They offer to bring it to us, but frankly speaking, we don't really want to store it on the territory of our utility company or to carry out responsible storage on the manufacturer's territory. We want it to be made and installed as soon as possible," he said.

At the same time, there was no answer to the question of MP Volodymyr Kornienko, who asked how much a toilet with a connection to the city's networks would cost. As a result, they decided to discuss these issues at the city council session.

On August 27, the Odesa City Council almost failed the "Barrier-Free Odesa" program due to a scandal over the cost of inclusive toilets, which cost 5.7 million hryvnias each. After a second vote, the decision was passed, but it was decided to allocate funds for only one.

Over four years, it was proposed to equip 19 such toilets in the city, but a number of deputies opposed it because of the significant overestimation of the price compared to the market price.

Кирило Бойко