Sadovyi urged MPs and government officials to forgo their salaries in solidarity with municipal workers

The Treasury blocked over 500 million UAH of Lviv's payments.

Lviv's municipal enterprises already have delayed payroll for their employees. To reduce tension in the city, Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said he is also refusing his own salary. He also proposed that government officials and members of parliament do the same. Sadovyi wrote this on social media.

According to him, this week some of Lviv's street cleaners and tram drivers may not receive their deserved salary for last month.

He explained that the reason is that the State Treasury Service stopped processing payments for transport services and sanitation. As a result, payments in Lviv totaling over 500 million UAH have not been made. However, that sum, which the state authorities have “effectively frozen,” also includes winter preparations, funding for medical and educational facilities, and emergency recovery works after missile strikes.

“We understand that in the fifth year of full-scale war the state budget situation is indeed difficult. Savings are necessary, but certainly not on municipal workers. For many of them this salary is critically important,” Sadovyi noted.

He added that he discussed this with Prime Minister Serhiy Koretskyi. The head of government explained that this is a forced decision, promising that critical payments will gradually be processed manually and that the situation may improve within a month.

“Under these circumstances I consider it unethical to receive a salary while payments for municipal workers have not been resumed. Therefore I am refusing my salary at this time. I propose that members of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and members of the Cabinet of Ministers adopt the same decision as a sign of solidarity with people who should receive their wages on time for work done on time,” he added.

Earlier the Association of Ukrainian Cities appealed to Prime Minister Serhiy Koretskyi for the government to immediately unfreeze funds needed, among other things, for winter preparations. Oksana Prodan, advisor to the head of the AUC, has already stated that by freezing allocations to communities the Cabinet of Ministers is violating the law.

The head of the parliamentary budget committee, Roksolana Pidlasa, reported that the Ministry of Finance postponed 39 billion UAH of capital expenditures to December. These are exactly the funds that were supposed to go to protecting the energy sector ahead of the heating season, building shelters in schools and hospitals, reconstructing medical facilities, and social housing. Postponing capital expenditures to the end of the year, she said, effectively means they will not be funded this year.