Odesa OMA withholds data on management's salaries from Nikcenter

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The Odesa Oblast Military Administration refused to provide the Mykolaiv-based investigative journalism center Nikcenter with information on the salaries of the administration's management and heads of departments, Nikcenter reported in a Facebook post.

The journalists said that the Odesa OMA only reported that their chair Oleh Kiper and his first deputy Oleksandr Kharlov were in the military, so data on their financial reports was classified “in the interests of national security.”

“The OMA added that they had no data on the sums of salaries, allowances and bonuses received by other OMA officials. The OMA claimed that answering the journalists’ query required creating new information, which is not provided for by the Law of Ukraine 'On Access to Public Information',” the media outlet wrote.

In a comment to an Institute of Mass Information representative, Nikcenter journalist Olesya Boreyko reported that the media outlet had sent out their standard queries to the Mykolaiv and Odesa OMAs, as well as the Mykolaiv and Odesa City Councils in August, asking for data on the payments accrued to administration chairs / mayors and their deputies in 2025. Similar queries were also submitted regarding department and office chiefs. All institutions provided the requested information except for the Odesa OMA, Boreyko said.

Nikcenter will sue or file a complaint with the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights.

In 2024, the Odesa Oblast Military Administration (OVA) refused to provide Nikcenter reporters with the list of persons who were nominated for state awards during the war.