Housing for the military, construction audits, cost optimization — the defense infrastructure reform plan

The profile team headed by the Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Stanislav Hayder presented a half-year plan of key steps in the reform of the defense infrastructure during the meeting of the Council of Donors of Institutional Reforms with the participation of representatives of 25 countries and international organizations.

The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine informed about this on September 23.

“According to the formed vision of the target structure of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and the results of the functional audit, the infrastructural direction should undergo a transformation,” Stanislav Heyder noted.

The Deputy Minister reminded that his team started taking care of this block a month and a half ago.

“We consider infrastructure as one of the key components of our capabilities, which must be developed. We have a clear understanding of what to do in the next six months and how to transform this sphere,” said Stanislav Heyder.

According to him, work is already underway on the key points of the transformation processes in the defense infrastructure. Among them:

The only development priorities In the conditions of war, in particular, constant missile attacks by the enemy, the development of the necessary military infrastructure for the placement of personnel and equipment is of critical importance.

Based on the approaches of NATO member countries, a decision was made to form a military infrastructure development function on the basis of one of the divisions of the Ministry of Defense.

This feature will be developed over the next two months. Our task is to define clear priorities and directions for wartime defense infrastructure financing before the start of the new budget year.

Elimination of duplication, optimization of administrative structures and costs By the end of the year, a number of organizational changes will be introduced, which will allow to remove duplication in the performance of functions in the direction of infrastructure. The administrative structures that currently deal with issues of construction organization in the Ministry of Defense will be significantly reduced without loss of potential.

From January 1, 2025, purchases of secondary housing, modular structures, equipment and certain other items of the Ministry of Defense for a total amount of several billion hryvnias will be transferred to the State Rear Operator. The result of these actions will be the release of a significant financial resource.

Construction audit For the first time, the Ministry of Defense will conduct a comprehensive audit of military facilities under construction. Over the next 4-6 months, the Ministry of Education and Culture will carry out an inventory of all active and frozen projects in order to form a holistic vision of how to effectively spend funds in this direction in 2025 and the following years.

A component of this vision will be a strategic plan for the management of objects under construction.

Housing for the military The Ministry of Defense will change the approach to providing military housing. Instead of multi-year construction projects, clear and transparent financial mechanisms and financial support for housing will be introduced. The concept of such changes has already been formed, its discussion with financial institutions and non-governmental organizations has begun.

Transparency In order to create a transparent electronic record of lands and buildings of the Ministry of Defense, work is underway on the corresponding IT system. A prototype of such a solution has already been created, and the first results of the implementation of electronic accounting are expected by the end of the year.

Effective management and operation of infrastructure Work has begun on the creation of a civil real estate agency that will manage land and other real estate on a commercial basis. The work of such an agency is based on the examples of NATO member countries.

In order to save costs for the operation of the infrastructure, the implementation of individual energy efficiency pilot projects has already begun. However, what is needed is a comprehensive policy and implementation of joint energy efficiency projects. Work is underway to launch a partnership project in this direction.

Joint infrastructure projects with partners During the war, the priority in cooperation with partners was and will be armaments. At the same time, the subject of discussion is also joint projects in the areas of construction, restoration (reconstruction) of defense infrastructure facilities, such as health care facilities, military educational institutions, etc.

Bilateral security agreements concluded with partner countries can also become the basis of such joint projects. The implementation of joint projects will strengthen the capabilities of the Defense Forces for both military and development needs.