Bashtanka amalgamated hromada in the Mykolayiv Oblast was formed a little more than two years ago. It has already united 26 settlements with about 23 thousand residents. It is one of the largest and most successful hromadas in the oblast. Annual budget amounts to UAH 200 million with own funds making up half of it.

The Bashtanska AH has recently become the winner of the all-Ukrainian budget transparency ranking “Crystal of the Year”. In addition, it won the first place in the nominations “The Best Engagement of Citizens in the AH Budget Process” and “Budgetary Information Openness in AH”. The ranking was conducted by the Consortium of International Technical Assistance Projects. Ukrinform correspondent spoke with hromada head Ivan Rubskyi, honored economist of Ukraine.

- Your AH won the prestigious all-Ukrainian competition “Crystal of the Year”, having received victories in three at once. How did you succeed?

- Financial state of the hromada is its basis. Without this foundation, it's impossible to move forward. We passed a year-long assessment in 134 indicators in line with the international methodology. A group of experts came to us several times, in particular from the USA, Canada and other countries.

One should not grudge time to improve. We still have something to aim at.

- One of these awards also indicates that you were able to establish good communication with your hromada. How exactly?

- We try not to hide anything from our people, involve them in the budget process, tell us about the estimate, how it is formed, what it can be spent on, and so on. We also have a website, where we inform our hromada about our steps and actions, and encourage activists to take part in various events.

- You are one of the few AHs with an investment department created. Does it already have real results?

- Of course. We attract UAH 50 million of investments annually. It was a well thought out and planned action. The first funds, that we invested in our hromada development, were spent on creation of an investment department. We employed good specialists there, created the conditions for work. This is the baseline.

One of the promising directions is the attraction of energy investments. To do this, we have prepared and approved a plan for hromada sustainable energy development at the session. We have become one of 30 Ukrainian AHs to become participants of the GIZ project “Energy Efficiency in Municipalities II”.

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