There are /// bodies in focus of our committee scan today:
Committee on Fuel and Energy Complex, Nuclear Policy and Nuclear Safety
The committee held hearings on the topic "Public sector of coal industry on the way to ... Strategic vision and budget process". Parliamentarians, representatives of the energy and coal industry ministry, the ministry of finance, the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine, specialized scientific and technical institutions and trade unions took part in the committee hearings.
At the very beginning of the meeting, it was noted that despite numerous pre-discussions, there are still many problems in the industry that require decisive actions to be taken immediately. Heedless of the fact that Ukraine had managed to halve its coal import in 2017-18, the country, as the energy minister stated, is now at its straight choice between developing home coal production or further importing. Meanwhile, the branch-wise arrears of wages as of October 1 have made UAH 488 million. From the extra UAH 1.4 billion assigned by the latest budget amendments for the coal mining industry, there only UAH 133 million have been as yet transferred into the bargain.
The participants of the hearings called on the government to focus on developing the public sector of the coal industry through, among other things, secure prioritizing the coal extracted by state mines before the coal imported.
Committee on Budget
The committeemen met with representatives of the Council of Europe and the UA:PBC’s review board on financing Ukraine’s public broadcasting. The main topic of the meeting was to discuss a range of issues related to the financial provision of public broadcasting in Ukraine, regarding, in particular, expenditures for the financial support of the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine in the draft 2019 state budget.
Committee on Construction, Urban Development, Housing and Communal Services
The committee reviewed the problems in central water supply and water disposal, expounded in a letter of the president of the Ukrainian association “Ukrvodokanalekolohiia” submitted before. In attendance there also were the association president, representatives of the ministry of regional development, construction and housing and communal services, the National energy and utilities regulatory commission (NKREPK), the state fiscal service.
The committeemen appealed to the parliament to immediately review the committee-driven bill No.7083 on amendments to certain laws of Ukraine pertaining to settling the debts of heat supply and heat-generating facilities and central water supply and water disposal facilities for energy consumed.
The committee also agreed to promote the following bills: No.7073 - amending the law on state aid to economic entities, No.8253 – on settling the backlog of debts accumulated in the electric power wholesale market.
Members of the committee also passed a resolution to send the prime minister a letter urging to consider the above problems and do the needful.