The state road agency (Ukravtodor) has estimated the Ukrainian economy’s losses as a result of bad roads at UAH 120 billion per year. The press service of Ukravtodor announced this, citing information by Ukravtodor’s deputy head Mykola Berezovskyi.
According to forecasts by Ukravtodor, these losses will be incurred in 2016 and 2017, press service said. In particular, Ukravtodor take into account over-expenditure of fuel, increased costs resulting from reduced traffic speed, and the cost of repairs vehicles.
"The high proportion of transport costs specifically increases production costs by about 15%," the press service said. The food product worst affected by the additional costs imposed by poor roads is buckwheat: more than 26% of its cost. Transportation adds about 4% to the production cost of bread, 5% to the production cost of milk, about 8% to the production cost of sausages and meat products, and 12.5% to the production cost of sugar.
"The road network has never been in such a state since the country attained independence. This year, we are entering the repair and construction season with an incredible pothole indicator – more than 14.7 million square meters. The scariest thing is that our experts are forecasting that we will be able to repair about 10 million square meters of potholes this year," Berezovskyi said.
In 2016, only UAH 2.5 billion was allocated from the state budget for operational maintenance of roads while the minimum amount of funding required was UAH 9 billion. At the same time, Ukravtodor could spend a little more than UAH 1 billion on repair of potholes and deformation of road surfaces this year.
However, the situation involving financing of medium-level repair of roads has improved. This year, 1,750 kilometers of road repair work is expected to be performed compared with about 300 kilometers in 2015.
