Investors lined up. Now roads in Ukraine will be tolled
On the air of one of the Ukrainian TV channels, the Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Vladimir Omelyan announced the appearance of toll highways in the near future.
The ministry generally has a lot of original ideas. Among others, Omelyan named the creation of the Road Fund and the decentralization of Ukravtodor with the transfer of funding to the local level.
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They love and know how to create foundations in Ukraine. Whatever the minister, the Foundation. It is unlikely that the fate of this Fund will differ from its brothers in the shop of fishing out budget money in the e-declaration of officials. The already transferred hospitals and educational institutions can tell how decentralization and the transfer of roads to maintenance sites will end.
But Omelyan is confident that “these are the keys to foreign investment, job creation, and the return of Ukraine to the European agenda...”. What connection? And what, Ukraine was already on the “European agenda”? Perhaps Omelyan was referring to the referendum in Holland and the decisions on “visa-free travel”?
The Minister of Infrastructure said that toll roads may appear in Ukraine, built at the expense of private investors in 2017-2018. They will be built as an alternative to existing ones.
“Private roads are possible, so-called concession roads. They can only be built as an alternative to existing free ones. Theoretically, there is interest from some large European investors and also from China, who are ready to enter the Ukrainian market with this proposal. Now we are studying this, the key thing is again the “road fund”, the law on concessions. These documents are now under development... The road fund is already being approved by parliament, ... the concession law, we hope, will be submitted to parliament for consideration in January,” Omelyan said.
There are two wonderful things in this text.
The first is roads that are alternative to existing ones. This, we must understand, will new roads be built, parallel, for example, to the Kyiv-Odessa or Kyiv-Lviv highways? Can anyone believe this? At one time, Yulia Tymoshenko called for building “many pipelines” to create competition for existing ones, although it is not clear why, if the Ukrainian gas transportation system belongs to Ukraine. Perhaps it is worth building parallel railways and metro lines to create competition, which the current Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers loves to talk about? How it will end is clear even without Vanga. Investors will invest in the creation of entry points on roads that will suddenly become toll roads. Back in July, the head of the department of investments in infrastructure projects of the Investment Agency of the Odessa Regional State Administration, Vladimir Shemaev, announced the price for travel on the Odessa-Kyiv highway - 856 hryvnia.
The question is not whether it is a lot or a little. The question is different - why should people actually pay, in fact, a new tax? Not enough excise taxes, fees, and even the Fund being created?
The second is “individual large investors.” The key word in mentioning them is “theoretically.” Theoretically, Ukraine is already building cities on Mars and has orders for dozens of Antonov Design Bureau aircraft in dozens of countries around the world. Almost within a year, Antonov assembled two aircraft from old kits left in warehouses from pre-Maidan times. And Yuzhmash works one day a week. Still, I would like to know the name of at least one investor, not theoretical, but real.
Inspiringly, Omelyan answered the question: where should we attract foreign investors first? Such an answer would be quite satisfactory for those who have not followed what is happening in Ukraine in recent years: “First of all, there is a boom around seaports.” That's it - short and clear - boom. Maybe this is an echo of the boom around HMOs?
Omelyan states that “There is already a line of investors ready to invest in the Ukrainian railway or in railway transport as such, in rolling stock, traction, infrastructure...”. It turns out that “there are already about ten leading companies producing locomotives and other railway infrastructure items. There is interest. They are ready to invest. But there is no mechanism, because the Ukrainian railway is a monopoly. This is what we say - there must be a free market, free competition, this will give the best product for consumers."
For a country in which loans from the IMF are called help, it is not surprising that those who want to sell their locomotives and, as Omelyan says, other infrastructure things, are called investors. The sale of assets to “investors” for next to nothing with the final loss of control over their own economy has now become the basis of Kyiv’s state policy.
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