More and more concerned Odessa residents are joining the picket against inadequate tenders, which, on the initiative of the famous volunteer Ekaterina Nozhevnikova, has been taking place under the walls of the Odessa City Council since August 28.

On the morning of September 9, more than a thousand citizens gathered on Duma Square. As a Dumskaya correspondent reports, the meeting was peaceful, the protesters chanted “Penny for ZSU”, “Ganba” and “Gena get out”.

“We came out not against the authorities, but to the authorities so that they could hear us,” said Katerina Nozhevnikova, head of the Odessa charitable foundation Monsters, Inc. “We no longer know how to reach the authorities so that they hear us.” We demand that taxes be spent on helping the military, on turnstiles, boats, and evacuation vehicles. But instead, every day we see tenders: courts, trees, facades, drums.”

The rally lasted more than an hour, people sang the Ukrainian anthem and shared stories of their loved ones fighting at the front with journalists. None of the city hall employees came to see them. The logical point of completion of the picket was a minute of silence in memory of the fallen defenders of Ukraine.

Let us remind you that the first rally near the Odessa City Council against spending funds on non-critical needs took place on August 28 . Officials ignored Odessa residents for more than a week and even on City Day did not come out to talk with the protesters .

Nine days after the start of the picketing, its participants were still able to meet with the mayor of the city, Gennady Trukhanov . The mayor assured those gathered that he was doing everything possible to help the Armed Forces of Ukraine and complained about the lack of an effective mechanism to quickly respond to requests from the military.

On the same day, the capital construction department of the Odessa City Council entered into an agreement with the winner of the scandalous tender for the reconstruction of the building of the Kiev district court.

“Dumskaya” has repeatedly written that both the city and the region hold very dubious tenders during the war. For example, they want to spend more than 30 million hryvnia on  repairing the facade of the Theater for Young Spectators , and the Odessa Regional Council plans to allocate another more than 30 million to  repair roads in the village of Dachnoe. And the regional assembly wants to spend 200 thousand hryvnia on frames .

(C)DUMSKAYA.NET 2023