Municipalities Plan for the Future: Chop’s Residents Get Clear Water
Water had been a serious problem for Chop for quite some time. Galyna Petrivna, who has lived in the town for the last 40 years, says that not so long ago she could not have been sure of what would pour from her kitchen tap: clear drinkable water, brownish stuff with a bad odor, or nothing at all. Still, Galyna was luckier than some Chop residents who live in older buildings in the town and had running water only during certain evening and morning hours.
The water treatment plant that supplies water to the town was constructed back in 1954. Initially, water was supplied from an underground water source. However, with a growing demand for water, the government decided to supplement this supply by tapping into local surface water that was of an inferior quality because no water treatment technology existed to clean it up.
Despite the fact that Chop serves as one of Ukraine’s main international entry points and boasts the largest land customs office in the country, the town consistently lacked funds to fix the water problem. Single-year planning simply did not allow city officials to allocate sufficient resources to reconstruct the water facilities. In previous years, the water problem always seemed to get buried under a pile of seemingly equally important issues during budget preparations for the following year’s budget.
Things changed when MBR came to town. The project’s experts quickly pointed to Program Performance Budgeting as a possible solution to the town’s problem. The project helped town officials form the Town Advisory Committee to coordinate PPB activities and actively engage the public in the budgeting process. It was during one of the committee’s public hearings that the issue of water supply was placed high on the agenda.
“People made it very clear to us that they needed better water in this town ASAP,” says Volodymyr Gorynetsky, Mayor of Chop, who has been working with MBR since 2005. “By sharing responsibility with our people, we carefully proceeded forward to find a solution to our water problem.”
Implementation of PPB enabled Chop to develop a three-year program for funding the construction of a new water treatment plant in the central part of the city and set program performance indicators, as well as put into operation a second unfinished underground water treatment plant. Very soon, fresh clean water will find its way to Galina Petrivna’s kitchen.
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Chop’s Mayor Volodymyr Gorynetsky demonstrates strategic map of the city to MBR specialists
Photo Credit: Valeria Kotlyarenko |
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