Dec. 17, 2024, 8:32 p.m.
(Photo: Intent/Natalia Dovbysh)
On December 4, the Odesa City Council held the final session of 2024, which marked the beginning of the city's preparations for the next year. This meeting is a kind of summary of the work of the deputy corps for the current year. The experts of the all-Ukrainian public campaign"Certification of Local Council Deputies" analyzed how the session was held and what decisions were made.
It should be noted that in Odesa City Council, it is a well-established habit that a large share of draft decisions proposed for consideration by deputies are published in violation of the law, i.e. in less than 10 working days. For example, the preliminary agenda was published only on November 21, and some draft decisions appeared on the website the day before the session or just before it started on December 4.
Screenshot of the Odesa city council website
One of the first issues considered by the deputies during the session was amending the Rules of Procedure of the city council. From now on, amendments to the draft decisions of the sessions must be published along with the draft decisions.
Several Regulations on departments and offices of the city council were amended. The new version of the Regulations on the departments of internal policy and health care, and the SACC department were adopted. In particular, the Regulation on the Department for Organizing the Work of Odesa City Council was amended. The new version significantly expands the list of tasks and functions of the Department, in particular in the areas of digitalization, public relations, and ensuring transparency of the city council's work through electronic services. The tasks of organizing and providing advisory assistance to deputies, as well as supporting interaction between the council executive bodies and deputies have been added. As stated in the explanatory note to the draft decision, these changes were due to a significant update of legislation and the expansion of the Department's functions in recent years, which was not taken into account by the current Regulation.
There have been changes in the deputy corps. We described in more detail all the changes in the composition of the Odesa City Council in our previous article. At the session on December 4, a deputy from the "Trust the Deeds" faction , Lyudmyla Varavva, submitted a letter of resignation. According to media reports, the deputy is currently living in the United States, so she does not attend city council sessions. 43 deputies cast their votes in favor of terminating her powers.
Interestingly, during the same session, a new deputy was promptly sworn in to replace Liudmyla Varava. According to the secretary of the Odesa City TEC, Albert Bayzhanov, it was a doctor Antonina Kaprosh. It should be reminded that in similar situations, when it was necessary to appoint new deputies from the European Solidarity and Servant of the People factions to replace the departed deputies, the Odesa TEC took months to make a decision.
So, as of the end of 2024, after all the changes, we have the following situation with the number of deputies available.
The "Trust the Deeds" faction. In fact, there are 18 deputies in the council out of the 20 seats available in the party. Oleh Bryndak is in the Armed Forces, and the Trust the Deeds party has effectively cut off all ties with him after high-profile scandals. Oleksandr Matveiev, the former head of the permanent parliamentary commission on communal property, has been put on the international wanted list.
European Solidarity faction. It has a full complement of 10 MPs.
"Servant of the People" faction. It has a full complement of 9 deputies, and we can also "conditionally" add the non-factional secretary of the council, Ihor Koval, who was elected from this party.
Deputies from the banned Shariy Party and OPFL became non-factional. De jure, there are 15 deputies from the former OPFL faction in the council, but in fact there are 12. Nikita Avdeev, Bohdan Giganov, and Vitaliy Sautenkov , although "listed" as deputies, have disappeared from the public space of the city and the country since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Of the six deputies from the former Shariy party faction, only Ivan Semchuk remained, who has also never been in the council since February 24, 2022.
Therefore, according to the list, the Odesa City Council de jure has 56 deputies, but in fact, no more than 50 can participate in the work of the council and its bodies.
In 2024, changes also affected the composition of standing committees. During the session on December 4, deputy Oksana Antonishak was removed from the Standing Committee on Culture, Tourism and International Relations, and instead was included in the Standing Committee on Communal Property, Economic, Investment, State Regulatory Policy and Entrepreneurship. It should be reminded that former MP Liudmyla Varavva was already a member of the commission on municipal property, as well as the wanted Oleksandr Matveev. So without them, this commission would have remained composed of two MPs and would not have been able to work.
As usual, at the last regular session of the year, the deputies adopt the city budget and distribute it to local targeted programs. The total budget for 2025 amounts to UAH 12.1 billion, with expenditures of UAH 12 billion. In fact, the budget was approved at the level of the previous two years.
If we compare how the budget of Odesa has changed since the beginning of the cadence of the deputies of the VIII convocation, we can see the following dynamics:
It should be noted that the amount of the city budget by year is indicated according to the approved decision at the beginning of each year. The annual reports on budget execution already have updated data.
During the meeting, the deputies repeatedly emphasized that in the context of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation, a significant part of the city budget is directed to defense activities, support for the military, and assistance to victims of military operations.
Despite the difficulty of allocating budget funds for the city's development, the decision to approve the budget increased the deputy fund. For 2025, the amount of UAH 280 million is allocated (5 million for each of the 56 deputies). It should be reminded that in 2024, the total amount of this expenditure item reached UAH 244 million (UAH 4 million per deputy).
About 35% of the budget is allocated for the implementation of city target programs in 2025. Thus, the decision on the budget allocates UAH 4.3 billion for the implementation of 28 target programs. If we analyze this item of expenditure in more detail, we have the following breakdown by program area:
Image: Certification of local council members
Particular attention was paid to discussing the procedure for compensating Odesa residents for damaged or destroyed housing in cultural heritage sites.
At the beginning of the session, Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov made a speech about the lack of a legislative mechanism for receiving compensation for damaged housing under the eRestoration program by residents of houses with the status of cultural heritage monuments. Therefore, the deputies appealed to the Verkhovna Rada and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to urgently resolve this issue and create conditions for the owners of apartments in damaged or destroyed buildings that are architectural monuments to have the same right to compensation for damaged housing as other citizens.
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