Since the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Defense has authorized the newly created “Defense Procurement Agency” (SE “State Logistics Operator”) to conduct tenders for everything necessary for the army, except weapons. It was headed by official Arsen Zhumadilov. Currently, this person manages billions of dollars in budgets for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. political expert Andrey Zolotarev.
At the same time, the Agency receives a commission of 0.4% of the amount of each contract, so it is interested in increasing the price of lots, he adds. Zolotarev suggests tracking this by studying the first and second February tenders that went through the Prozorro system.
“Let’s take two recent February food auctions totaling almost 7 billion UAH. It turns out that the Defense Procurement Agency, under the leadership of Zhumadilov, inflates the cost of the food set from 120 to 139.38 hryvnia. Like pennies, but due to the large number of purchases, these pennies add up to a difference of 1.5 billion UAH. Of this amount, officials of the state enterprise received UAH 28 million for themselves personally,” – the expert emphasizes.
He notes that, despite the promised new approaches to defense procurement, the only new approach, according to the announced February tenders, is a change in the name of the customer: it was the Department of Public Procurement of the Ministry of Defense, now it is the Agency. At the same time, the Department received only salaries, the Agency – 0.4% of the contract amount.
“28 million could have been used to purchase food for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but will go to salaries and bonuses of the Zhumadilov Agency. By the way, the salary of its management team is about 200 thousand UAH per month. Where are the reforms promised? And from an economic and moral point of view, is it advisable to spend 0.4% of the defense budget on maintaining an additional number of officials? – asks Zolotarev.
Let us remind you that the DBI is currently investigating the high-profile case of Lviv businessman Igor Grinkevich, who made a million-dollar fortune by supplying the Ukrainian army.
Source: Fakty
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