On April 6, 2015, an article entitled “Neither land nor profit” covering urgent issues on urban land lease in Mykolayiv city was published on the information resource “A centre for journalistic investigations”.
Aiming to attract public attention to the current problems in this sector (proper payment for land use, land use purpose), journalists mentioned only negative factors and examples that distorted real state of affairs.
Our company was also depicted negatively, despite the fact that NIBULON legally leases land, uses land according to its intended purpose and also pays for land use properly (the company paid about UAH 8 million for land leased in Mykolayiv city during the last five years).
NIBULON agricultural company is one of the leading agricultural producers, investors and exporters in Ukraine. It is one of the largest tax payers in the Ukrainian agrarian sector. NIBULON created hundreds of workplaces, pays hundreds of millions of hryvnas to the local budget annually and implements important social and infrastructure projects. Consequently, Mykolayiv is developing itself as a high-capacity water transport center of the Black Sea region.
NIBULON’s facilities can be rightfully called model ones. Hundreds of people of different age and professions visit them. NIBULON is a European company with high standards of operation. Thus, the company takes into account and upholds the community interests, conducting its agribusiness.
Together with Mykolayiv council, NIBULON upheld citizen rights to dispose land.
Thus, according to the Resolution of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine dated 15.11.1996 No. 518/96-VR “On Approval of Mykolayiv Borders (Mykolayiv Region)”, Mykolayiv includes land of water resource inventory located under water surface of the Bug Estuary. According to the current legislation, the city council is in charge of land within the city. Due to this land, hydrotechnical facilities are constructed and sea transport is developed, thereby creating new workplaces for Mykolayiv citizens and directing payment for leased land to the local budget.
Since 2002, several times the public prosecution bodies as well as the court have considered whether Mykolayiv local authorities had competence to dispose land, in particular to let on lease land of water resource inventory. The public prosecution bodies complained three times and the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Ukraine complained twice to the court, challenging the city council authority to dispose the city land. In addition, the public prosecution bodies repeatedly provided documents of prosecutor’s response both to the city council and to the State Agency of Land Resources of Ukraine, requiring to annul the decisions concerning the lease of land of water resource inventory by different business entities conducting their business activities in the maritime transport sector.
Consequently, together with the city council, NIBULON had to regularly uphold decisions made by the city council and land lease agreements signed. Due to the appropriate legal argumentation and well-coordinated work, the courts declared that the city council is competent to dispose land of water resource inventory within Mykolayiv city and approved the legality of land lease agreements signed by the city council. This allowed to protect both the territorial community rights for the city land and investor interests that work in Mykolayiv. In particular, the decisions made by the city council are legal, and the property rights of investors both for leased land and hydrotechnical facilities (berths, access ducts, operational water areas of berths, etc.) constructed on the land are protected.
Thus, Mykolayiv city council and NIBULON succeeded in improving investment climate in the city and preserving not only budget receipts from leased land but also workplaces in the maritime economic sector.
This testifies that reliable investors like NIBULON exist and work for the benefit of community.
Thus, we call on mass-media representatives to be responsible and to check information in order to avoid untrue data.