Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Roman Leshchenko together with Acting Chairman of the State Geocadastre Oleksiy Pinchuk, Acting Chairman of the State Space Agency Mykhailo Lev and leading employees of the Research Institute of Geodesy and Cartography, USAID Agro program section manager Serhiy Kubakh presented a pilot project of the National Geospatial Data Infrastructure to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Roman Leshchenko noted that the project is being implemented in the framework of the land reform initiated by the Head of State in 2019. For about 20 years the issue of openness of data on land resources has not been resolved, and finally the law "On the national infrastructure of geospatial data" was adopted in April 2020. After that, the team of the State Geocadastre began work on the project, which is presented today.
"This is a law that makes the land cadastre transparent and open, which gives the public information about all natural resources, who uses them, who is the owner, who received land for free, who pays taxes and how much, where illegal logging takes place, where we have problems with fires, any man-made disasters, whether legal or illegal construction is carried out. This is a large database of our state in the framework of the main positions that you have outlined to us in the implementation of land reform," the Minister stressed.
The participants of the meeting informed Volodymyr Zelenskyy in detail about the project and the geoportal, which has now started working in test mode.
The adoption of the necessary legal documents for a full-fledged launch at the national level is currently expected. According to the Minister, the nationwide presentation should take place at the Land Forum.
"This is a real revolution that has been awaited for a very long time," Roman Leshchenko stressed.
The President asked how the accuracy of the data on the portal would be verified. He stressed that the information on the portal should be as relevant as possible. To this end, the State Space Agency must conclude appropriate agreements to receive data from partner satellites until Ukraine launches its own.
"This is necessary for the people. People who have been simply deceived for many years do not trust any system. Therefore, a transparent government must be transparent. If you upload something like this and make it transparent, it should be constantly updated. It must be alive. For this we need a satellite. Yes, we do not have our own satellite yet, but we will build it and launch it this year," the President said.
The Head of State also noted that ministries, cities and communities should publish their data in accordance with the law and not delay the process. Especially in terms of information about the lands of ministries and departments, government agencies.
"You must inform all the ministries that they must transfer or upload, open, give everyone the opportunity to see all this data as soon as possible," Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed.
The Head of State also stressed that the portal should not only record all data or violations, but also have a clear response of the relevant authorities and agencies to the established facts of violations, such as illegal logging, illegal mining, etc.
The Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine noted that next week it is planned to consider a number of bills that basically finalize land reform.