“No funding”: Avstostrada owner Maxim Shkil spoke about the failure to protect energy facilities

Chairman of the Infrastructure Development Committee of the Federation of Employers of Ukraine and owner of the construction company Autostrada Maxim Shkil, after a recent post in which he accused the government of failing to protect the Trypillya Thermal Power Plant and other energy facilities, explained why the protection of energy facilities in Ukraine was defeated.

The businessman published a corresponding message on Facebook .

Thus, Mr. Shkil recalled that back in October 2022, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief had a meeting with the military and government representatives on the protection of energy facilities . As part of this meeting, according to the businessman, a clear instruction was given to ensure the third level of protection for energy facilities.

It was at that time that his company Autostrada began to work in support of the Government , but without government funding.

“Realizing the importance of the issue and the scale of the threat, Autostrada began working around the clock without government funding, investing more than $100 million in materials and production capacity. 7 concrete plants, special equipment, mixers, drilling machines, pallet breaking machines were purchased, over 20 thousand tons of rolled metal were purchased, more than $10 million was invested in equipment and a plant for the production of metal structures was launched. All this was done in order to ensure the construction of protection for energy facilities in the shortest possible time,” says Maksm Shkil.

According to the owner of the company, he employed more than 1,000 workers and organized work in three shifts. This is how Autostrada, as a responsible business, approached the order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief to ensure the protection of energy facilities in war conditions.

However, as Shkol notes, as a result, the President’s instructions were ignored, funds were not allocated, and funding was completely stopped.

“We wrote letters to the Cabinet of Ministers about the allocation of funding, but there was no response. We are left face to face with these problems, billions of dollars in loans and debts. I assume that the calculation was that there would be no shelling and maybe somehow it would pass... But today the realities are different - there are shellings, people and businesses are experiencing the consequences of such inaction, restrictions have been introduced on the supply of electricity. The third degree of protection has not been implemented due to lack of funding,” he said.

Finally, Maxim Shkil added that the protection of energy facilities should be one of the priority areas of financing.

“Any position is not only authority, but also responsibility! The Ministry of Finance of Ukraine operates with taxpayers’ funds; if there is no electricity, there will be no taxes - these are quite simple and obvious things,” the businessman concluded.

Let us recall that previously the chairman of the Infrastructure Development Committee of the Federation of Employers of Ukraine and the founder of the Autostrada group of companies, Maxim Shkil, claimed that the government owed the State Corporation more than 5 billion hryvnia. According to him, the Government has not allocated enough funds to protect critical infrastructure .