President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged to abandon the pothole repair, enhance the weight-size control on highways, ensure the responsibility of contractors for the quality of road repair and intensify the fight against “tender trolls”.
“For many years, there has been a so-called successful startup in our country due to which some officials have built numerous real estate objects. This startup is called pothole repair. It must become a thing of the past. We are talking about road construction and overhaul. They should form at least 80% of the total amount of work,” the President said during the “Knit Ukraine Together: Security, Construction, Financing” event at the State Agency of Automobile Roads of Ukraine.
According to him, there should be a guarantee and responsibility of the contractor for the repair work, so that asphalt does not disappear together with the snow in the spring.
Also, the Head of State urged to enhance the weight-size control on highways.
“Overloaded trucks that leave tracks behind them must disappear from our roads. Last year, innovative weighing complexes with weigh in motion technology were installed. They should be spread throughout the country and violators should be responsible for the destruction of our roads,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed.
The Head of State offered to use these technologies on all new roads that will be built this year.
In addition, the President called on local authorities to step up work to approve the list of road construction and repair.
"Unfortunately, only 15 regions have done it before our meeting, 7 are being processed now, and 3 regions have not provided us with this list at all," he said.
The Head of State also appealed to the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine with a request to actively cooperate with law enforcement agencies providing them with information about companies - "tender trolls" whose main task is to block tenders.
"I want the Antimonopoly Committee to make the whole program. Since we already use the word “trolls”, let us find the way to “ban” these tender trolls," the President stressed.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that Ukrainian citizens did not believe in promises and good slides of presentations anymore. Hence, the authorities must convince them with their deeds.
"Let's prove everything with deeds. I want Ukrainians to really feel and see the result. I really want us to be able to travel throughout our country safely and with pleasure. It sounds like a paradox, but we need to build in order to destroy. To destroy the myth that Ukraine and good roads are incompatible things. Let us destroy this myth,” the Head of State said.