Odesa investigated what deputies spent millions from the budget last year

In 2025, deputies of the Odesa City Council received UAH 5 million from the budget for their deputy funds, which totaled more than a quarter of a billion hryvnias.

Experts of the all-Ukrainian civic campaign "Certification of Local Council Deputies" analyzed how Odesa deputies spent their funds.

Due to the fact that more than 50% of the session meetings were missed without valid reasons, the working group decided to reduce the deputy fund of the Odesa City Council for 2025 for the respective deputies by UAH 25 million. This decision concerned such deputies as Nikita Avdeev, Bohdan Giganov, Oleksandr Matveev, Vitaliy Sautenkov and Ivan Semchuk.

Thus, the final amount of the deputy fund of the Odesa City Council for 2025 amounted to 255 million, distributed among 51 deputies. Last year, the largest amount of funding was allocated to the Health Department - over UAH 100 million. The second place was taken by the Department of Municipal Economy - about 70 million hryvnias, and more than 27 million were allocated for education. Some deputies did not use their funds or did not do so fully.

The deputy fund, as in previous years, was formed as part of the development budget of the Odesa city territorial community. Its use was regulated by a decision of the city council and the relevant regulation on the procedure for submitting and reviewing deputies' proposals for allocating funds. Formally, these funds are a tool for implementing deputy initiatives and were used for capital expenditures.

Between 90% and 99% of the deputy fund was used by 38 MPs: Oleksandr Avdeev, Oksana Antonishak, Oleksiy Asaulenko, Oleksandr Baiderin, Maryna Boyko, Ihor Batrakov, Anastasia Bolshedvorova, Andriy Vagapov, Olena Vododyuk, Iryna Holovatyuk-Yuzephpolska, Oleksandr Edelman, Oleksiy Yeremitsa, Natalia Zhukova, Oleksandr Ivanitsky, Vasyl Yeremiya, Antonina Kaprosh, Mykhailo Karpenchuk, and Olha Kvasnytska, Ihor Koval, Volodymyr Kornienko, Lilia Leonidova, Maryna Lozovenko, Vadym Morokhovskyi, Levon Nikoghosyan, Petro Obukhov, Serhiy Oryshych, Svitlana Osaulenko, Tetiana Plaksiy, Svitlana Popova, Oleksiy Potapskyi, Daria Rybak, Roman Senyk, Serhiy Strashnyi, Dmytro Tantsiura, Andriy Ternovskyi, Oleksandr Sheremet, Serhiy Shmatko, Yuriy Schumacher.

Six candidates used between 50% and 89% of the funds: Oleh Etnarovych, Oleh Zvyahin, Andriy Kislovskyi, Viktor Naumchak, Oleksandr Slavskyi, and Eduard Stas.

Summarizing the results of the Odesa City Council's deputy fund in 2025, analysts have identified several key points:

• Funds continue to be directed to critical needs. A significant part of the funding was used for healthcare, municipal economy, and education, as well as for civil defense and support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
• The mechanism of MPs' accountability needs to be improved. Some MPs have not used their funds or have used them partially, and the existing control instruments do not always ensure full efficiency.
• Additional transparency guarantees should be provided for the effective functioning of the MPs' fund.

According to the analysts, the war conditions require flexible solutions, but do not eliminate the need for transparency and accountability. On the contrary, it is in the context of limited local government autonomy that publicity, clear rules and control become critical for the effective use of community resources.

Кирило Бойко