Sergey Levkovich: "The law is at the core of resolving issues"
March 4, 2025
Sergey Levkovich: "The law is the basis for resolving issues"
When seeking assistance from Sergey Levkovich, Assistant to the President – Inspector for the Vitebsk Region, for what seem to be private matters, applicants sometimes raise issues of public significance. This was also the case during a personal reception of citizens held at the Vitebsk District Executive Committee.
…A woman holds a residence permit in Belarus. She obtained it a year and a half ago after moving to her historical homeland from Latvia. She works at a state-owned enterprise and wants to change her job but cannot provide the new employer with the necessary package of documents. The applicant claims that other expatriates face the problem of not being able to provide a reference from their previous place of employment or their work record book. However, they could be beneficial to the labor market in Belarus.
Sergey Levkovich noted that the woman's case confirms that a reasonable manager will find a way to hire an employee needed by their enterprise. Bureaucratic obstacles should not arise when it comes to specialists who can prove their qualifications or when taking up employment that requires unskilled labor.
He instructed the Committee for Labor, Employment, and Social Protection of the Regional Executive Committee to study the situation with holders of temporary and permanent residence permits and to propose mechanisms for their integration into the region's economy within a month.
– I was too hasty with the landscaping of common areas in the village of Shultsevo, – the next applicant began his story. – I carried out sanitary felling of brushwood near the plot allocated to me for personal subsidiary farming.
That was the man's opinion. However, the district inspection of natural resources and environmental protection viewed his actions from a different perspective. For unauthorized vegetation removal, he was presented with a claim for compensation of the damage caused in the amount of 1.8 thousand rubles. In case of voluntary compensation, administrative penalties in the form of a fine will not be applied.
During the meeting, the citizen was explained that it is forbidden to cut down healthy trees (not emergency, not dangerous) on public lands. The decision to remove woody and shrubby vegetation as part of landscaping is made by a commission. This is preceded by the development of a master plan for the further development of the settlement and a felling project. The very procedure for creating these documents requires significant financial investment.
– The district budget initially allocates 160 thousand rubles for landscaping, – reported the chairman of the district council of deputies, Viktor Dorozhkin. – With this money, we need to clear snow, gravel roads, mow grass…
Sergey Levkovich summarized that even acting with good intentions, one must not break the law. An applicant can undertake the task of removing excessive vegetation in the settlement only if the executive committee makes an appropriate decision.
However, the problem of overgrowth is characteristic of many villages in the region and is large-scale. It may be necessary to escalate to a higher level with initiatives to simplify the procedure for sanitary felling on settlement lands.
Other issues raised by citizens to the President's aide concerned: maintenance of private housing stock, a dispute over land plot boundaries, and a labor dispute. All problems will be studied within a month, and applicants will be provided with responses.