Mykolaiv Zoo may be left without animal feed: the Treasury is delaying payment

Supply of feed to the Mykolaiv Zoo is under threat: due to payment delays by the Treasury, the institution cannot pay for animal food and utilities. Today, on 2 October, the zoo director Volodymyr Topchiy raised this issue at a meeting of the budget committee of the Mykolaiv City Council, and also during the session.

At the budget committee the director described the situation as follows:

We currently have debts for feed and utilities of about 2 million hryvnias. The Treasury is not paying our invoices. What should we do? Tomorrow I will have nothing to feed the animals with.

According to him, about 1.8 million hryvnias of that sum relates to debts for September. Suppliers have already warned of a possible suspension of deliveries. Volodymyr Topchiy relayed their demand:

The feed suppliers say: “We will not deliver feed if you do not pay.”

The mayor, Oleksandr Sienkevych, confirmed he is aware of the delays: such payments have not been processed for two weeks. He cited problems in the state budget as the reason. According to the mayor, the city requested that priority payments be carried out, but not only the zoo’s invoices remain in the queue.

I cannot do anything with the Treasury. We asked them to send all those payments that are considered priority. They are all waiting in line, like the replenishment of the statutory fund of the water utility, which must pay for water. Is the issue of water supply important for Mykolaiv? It is also on pause. Right now there are problems, we’ve all heard about it.

The zoo is located next to the shopping center «Epicenter», which Russian forces attacked several times with drones on the evening of 4 September and the night of 5 September. The animals were kept in closed enclosures during these strikes and were not harmed.

Earlier we wrote:

• Six impacts in a day: how Epicenter employees battled the fire in Mykolaiv
• Animals of the Mykolaiv Zoo survived the attack on «Epicenter» unharmed
• In Mykolaiv a “Shahed” attacked Epicenter and the region: two residents of Mykolaiv region were injured
• “Since 1 September there is no money for salaries”: Topchiy warned about the situation in cultural institutions