Entrepreneurs, doctors, transport workers to hold a rally on March 26 against activities of Kyiv authorities

11:40

Representatives of a range of Kyiv enterprises say they have joined efforts to defend the interests of public sector workers and entrepreneurs, and they plan to hold a rally on March 26 outside the Kyiv City State Administration building in protest at the misuse of the municipal budget and improper decisions made by the city authorities.

Kyiv administration has set the goal to destroy small business, a representative of the Association of Small Architectural Forms, Mykola Kryvoroh, said at a press conference on Tuesday.

According to Kryvoroh, intermediary companies are established "so that public enterprises receive all the money."

"The authorities strongly oppose any dialogue, they try to take away the remaining things... somebody wants to take the people to extremes," he said.

According to Kryvoroh, it is planned that the rally, which will take place on March 26 outside the Kyiv City State Administration building, will involve entrepreneurs, public sector workers, doctors, teachers and transporters.

After the rally outside the Kyiv City State Administration building, the protestors plan to travel to Bankova Street to demand talks with the head of the state, he added.

"We want to ask the president to do something. We don't want to go with stones in our hands... we're not asking for money, we're asking for the chance to work," Kryvoroh said.

A representative of one of the Kyiv trade unions of doctors, Larysa Kanarovska, in turn, said that financing of the medicine had practically stopped lately. Hospitals are not receiving enough funds for medicines and food for patients, she added.

According to Kanarovska, those medical institutions under the city health administration were suffering water and electricity outages.

The Kyiv transport sector is also in crisis now, said a representative of Association of Ukrainian Carriers, Ihor Husak, at the press conference.

"The sector is under raider re-appropriation," he said, adding that the authorities were trying to establish their own subsidiary companies in this sector, which he said would work on terms favorable to Kyiv's authorities.

"The sector will be unable to work under these conditions," he said.

"We don't demand a cut in taxes or the granting of benefits... People are worried. They don't see a future," he said.