Head of the State Service of Geology and Subsoil of Ukraine Roman Opimakh at a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council reported on the state of affairs in the field of subsoil use and additional measures taken to strengthen supervision in this area. The meeting was chaired by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
In Ukraine, 3044 special permits for the use of subsoil were issued, 824 of them belong to companies that are owned by the state and utilities, 2220 - to private structures. There is no information on the beneficiaries of 205 special permits among private companies, 53 of them belong to companies, whose founders are non-residents.
“Most of the special permits are granted for the extraction of minerals, in particular for the construction of roads and the manufacture of construction materials, as well as the extraction of groundwater. At the same time, geological exploration of the subsoil is carried out in limited volumes, ”noted Roman Opimakh.
The data is still static, it is assumed that they will be automatically and regularly updated. This will make it possible to determine online who manages the Ukrainian subsoil, how effectively they are used, what taxes are received by the state and local communities.
“In 2021, additional checks of 256 special permits are being carried out, which were taken into the focus of the NSDC's attention. Production was recorded at 52 sites, 38 permits were canceled, 35 permits were decided to be canceled in court, 23 were stopped. Inspections of the remaining special permits are planned for the 4th quarter of 2021 and 2022, "Roman Opimakh said.
In 2020, the consolidated budget received UAH 28.9 billion of rent for the use of subsurface resources, 80.5% of which are revenues from hydrocarbon production. Local governments receive 100% of the rent from the extraction of minerals of local importance and up to 30% of the national importance. In 2020, 682 out of 1469 united territorial communities of Ukraine received resource rent, which is 2.9 billion hryvnia.
As noted by NSDC Secretary Alexei Danilov, the council needs to check 211 mining companies and, in particular, how they got their permits and licenses. The SBU and the relevant authorities will investigate how it happened that the specified number of companies without the relevant regulatory legal acts, which were in force for 2018, received special permits for subsoil use, Danilov noted.
According to the State Service of Geology and Subsoil of Ukraine, in 2021, an increase in revenues from the mining industry to the budget of at least 50 billion hryvnia is expected.
