People's Deputy of Ukraine Yuriy Yekhanurov is convinced that a process of curtailing administrative reform is underway in Ukraine: "There is no longer any talk of administrative reform. This is a real 'bespredel,' a destruction of previous achievements. State secretaries have now disappeared, the separation of political positions from the executive structure has disappeared," Yuriy Yekhanurov stated in "Evening Freedom."
"The territorial reform is also being carried out solely for the interests of the authorities. We have 12 thousand local budgets. These funds are dispersed. Local budgets have no independent money. But independent territories must be economically self-sufficient. And the authorities will not allow this, because then it would be impossible to command them," the people's deputy believes.
The parliamentarian also touched upon the problem of deteriorating social standards. According to him, "the feeble 2004 budget actually increased the tax burden. We were deceived with pensions, and everyone whose pensions were recalculated has already understood this. And we lost on the issue of the minimum wage, which was reduced from 237 hryvnias to 205. And all this was done at a time when the budget has serious reserves."
The people's deputy called on citizens to take an active part in the social and political life of the state. "Civil society can be called whatever one likes and treated however one likes, which, by the way, is what the authorities are doing. But if we get up from our own couches, tear ourselves away from the televisions and begin to participate in the discussion of executive authority documents, then we will make a serious step in the fight against corruption, which will lead to an improvement of the situation in Ukraine," noted Yuriy Yekhanurov.