OREANDA-NEWS. March 01, 2012. This year the Company plans to spend UAH 60m to implement social projects in the regions where its enterprises are located, which is by 105% more than in 2011. Over 6 years, DTEK has spent nearly UAH 120m for social development. This does not include costs for maintenance of social facilities and environmental investment.
 
The Company announced its plans for 2012 on February 27 at a meeting of DTEK’s Social Partnership Steering Committee. This annual event brings together representatives of DTEK, partner organizations and officials from 24 local governing bodies from 8 regions with the population of over 7 million people.
 
‘This year we will focus on long-term development programmes rather than on small-scale charity,’ said Alexander Tolkach, DTEK Director for External Affairs. ‘The priority areas for DTEK’s corporate social responsibility programmes will remain public sector energy efficiency, healthcare, development of social infrastructure and business environment in Ukrainian towns and cities. We have been building a system of partnership relations and, in 2011, DTEK managed to engage international expertise of USAID, UNO and other organizations into joint projects and convinced partners to invest more than UAH 7m in joint programmes. The most important task today is to design social partnership strategies jointly with local authorities for the next several years. These strategies will set clear goals and direction for our efforts and investment.’
 
The Company’s largest project is ‘Energy Efficiency in the Public Sector’, which provides for upgrading of worn-out municipal heat supply systems and reducing heat and electricity consumption by social facilities, including kindergartens and schools. The company is implementing the project together with the USAID Municipal Heating Reform Project in Ukraine. For the moment, the town heat supply systems have been audited in Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Pavlograd, Kurakhovo and Burshtyn, and municipal energy plans on heating facilities upgrade have been designed. UAH 20m is allocated for their implementation in 2012.
 
In 2011, to raise the quality of medical services in the regions of DTEK’s presence the Company together with Rinat Akhmetov’s Foundation for ‘Development of Ukraine’ joined the ‘Telemedicine’ Project resulting in connection of four medical institutions in Lvov and one hospital in Burshtyn to the all-Ukrainian medical communication network. Now doctors and patients of these health centers can consult Ukrainian leading specialists through videoconferencing. This year DTEK plans to expand the telemedicine network in other cities. The 2011-2012 investments in the project will amount to UAH 3.7m.
 
Apart from this, the Company is implementing such large projects as ‘Clean Energy: Partnership for the Future of Dnepropetrovsk Region’, ‘Local Economic Development of Ukrainian Cities’, ‘International Technical Assistance Required for Development of Regions of DTEK’s Presence’, ‘Miners’ Health and Safety Improvement.’
 
‘One of DTEK’s strategic goals is to make living standards in the regions of our presence similar to those of Europe. This ambitious goal was set by our shareholder, Rinat Akhmetov. We will continue working in this direction and believe that the future of the towns’ social development lies in joint efforts of local authorities, private businesses and international organizations and institutions,’ said Aleksandr Tolkach.