Chernihiv City Council has been withholding information about the source of the funding for repair works in the Trump Square (previously known as Kazka Square) from local journalist Serhei Karas for more than three months, Karas reported to Andriy Kuzhel, the Institute of Mass Information’s representative in Chernihiv oblast.
Despite the journalist’s appeal to the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, he is yet to receive the answers to his key questions: who allocated the funds, how much, and whether there was tender bidding.
Serhei Karas submitted a query for public information to Chernihiv City Council via the Government Contact Centre on 30 April 2026, asking about the construction work in the square: who was funding the repairs, what their total scope is, which budget — municipal or regional — the money was coming from, when the works began and are due to be completed, and whether the procurement had been carried out through the Prozorro system.
The City Council’s executive committee replied on 8 May, claiming that Karas’s letter did not meet the requirements for a query, hence they decided to process it as a citizen’s appeal instead: within one month, rather than the five-day period stipulated for public information queries.
However, the journalist said, even this extended deadline was not met. On 7 August, the City Council provided answers to some of the questions but not all. In the response, the City Council stated that the repairs on the square’s landscaping elements, including the pavement, had been performed as part of the sweeping repair works on an emergency sewer collector, and named the state-owned company Chernihiv Water Utility as the client.
However, the City Council disclosed no information as to the total sum spent, the source of the funding, or whether a tender bidding procedure had been carried out, which Karas said were the details he had been trying to learn through his query.
Volodymyr Zelenchuk, a lawyer with the Institute of Mass Information, believes that the executive committee should have provided the journalist with part of the requested information. In particular, the client for the works, their cost, and the timeframe for completion, since this information should be clearly listed in the documentation regarding the execution of the works.
Yet, Zelenchuk added, some of the questions contained in the query did require some investigation, and the answers to them are not reflected in documents or elsewhere, meaning they are subject to examination under the procedure for responding to citizens’ appeals.
In a blog post, Serhei Karas said that the City Council’s claim regarding the contractor for the works contradicts a public statement by City Council official Maryna Semenenko, who had previously stated that the repairs in the square were carried out following the review of an appeal by 267 local residents the City Council’s Housing and Communal Services Department and the municipal enterprise Zelenbud.
Serhei Karas filed a complaint with Larysa Shumna, representative of the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights in Chernihiv oblast, on 10 July and again on 12 August. He asked the representative to assist in obtaining the information and to hold City Council officials accountable for violating the law on access to public information. The Commissioner’s secretariat has reported that they are reviewing the complaint.