The National Police is investigating the facts of possible “budget cuts” during the overhaul of the base of the Kyivgorsvet municipal enterprise on the street. Mechanical engineering, which was carried out “under the tenure” of the ex-director of this enterprise, Vladimir Krutsenko.
According to the investigation, Akkord LLC, which received more than 14 million hryvnia for these works, inflated the cost of major repairs, in which affiliated enterprises helped it. In particular, construction materials and services for their transportation were purchased at exorbitant prices from a private enterprise, whose director was an Accord accountant. As part of the investigation, law enforcement officers have already conducted several searches and plan to obtain a number of more documents from various government agencies - these “pieces of paper” should prove the guilt of the defendants in this case.
The corresponding investigation is being carried out within the framework of criminal proceedings No. 42022102090000293, which was opened by the Solomensky Department of the National Police of Kyiv on August 23, 2022. This case was opened upon the commission of an offense under Part 3 of Art. 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine – misappropriation, embezzlement of property or taking possession of it through abuse of official position, committed by prior conspiracy of a group of persons.
What did the National Police pay attention to?
As noted in the court decisions on this proceeding, in the period from July to December 2021, 4 contract agreements were concluded between KP Kievgorsvet and Accord LLC for the major repairs of houses, buildings and structures of property complexes on the street. Mashinostroitelnaya, 38 and 40 (the bases of this utility company are located there - KV). The total cost of work under these agreements should be 19.9 million hryvnia, but as a result, according to the Prozorro system, the contractor company received about 14.1 million hryvnia for carrying out this overhaul.
Already during the investigation, law enforcement officers learned that the volume and cost of work were inflated compared to the actual work performed and the average market value of construction materials.
In particular, according to the National Police, the construction materials used by Accord were purchased from suppliers who had previously purchased these materials at lower prices and were affiliated with the contractor company. Among these, law enforcement officials name the private enterprise "VIP-Crystal" (its founder and director is a person who was Accord's accountant in 2021-2023) and a certain individual entrepreneur (his name and surname are not specified in court decisions, he is at the same time the founder of that LLC contractor).
Thus, investigators found that, according to the executive documentation for these major repairs, the VIP-Crystal private enterprise provided Akkord LLC with services for organizing and transporting construction materials to the street. Mashinostroitelnaya, 38 for a total amount of about 118 thousand hryvnia. At the same time, law enforcement officers promptly identified a possible discrepancy between the paid and actually provided transportation services in the amount of approximately 80 thousand hryvnia.
Among other things, Accord purchased from the same company 450 profile pipes for 325 hryvnia per unit and 400 pieces of smooth painted sheets with a glossy finish for 345 hryvnia, while VIP-Crystal had previously purchased them from another company for 85 hryvnia and 250 hryvnia, respectively. At the same time, investigators have information that no VAT was paid when purchasing construction materials; there is no data on these transactions in the tax invoice database. The National Police believes that this may indicate the fictitiousness of the invoices that Accord LLC included in the executive documentation.
In November 2023 and February 2024, the National Police received the results of forensic commodity and forensic economic examinations, which established the overestimation of the cost of building materials that were used to carry out the above-mentioned major repairs. However, what the extent of the damage caused to the city budget of Kyiv in this case may be is not yet specified in the court rulings on this proceeding.
In addition, within the framework of this case, law enforcement officers have already carried out a number of investigative and search actions. For example, on November 2, 2023, a search was carried out in the apartment of the head of the VIP-Crystal private enterprise, during which documents about the activities of this enterprise (financial and economic documents, invoices) and the mobile phone of the specified person were seized. Subsequently, on November 30, the Solomensky District Court seized all property seized by law enforcement officers, because it was recognized by law enforcement officers as material evidence.
Also on November 10, 2023, law enforcement officers conducted a search at the office of Accord LLC. Then they confiscated the documentation for these major repairs - acceptance certificates for completed work, certificates for installed equipment, defect reports, etc. After this, on November 29, the same court seized all the papers.
On May 1, 2024, the Solomensky District Court allowed law enforcement officers access to reports on the results of desk audits of the tax reporting of the VIP-Crystal private enterprise on certain national and local taxes and fees and other documents stored by the tax authorities. Also on May 8 of this year, the same court granted law enforcement permission to access documents on examinations stored in an unnamed state-owned enterprise that carried out these studies. In particular, we are talking about the correspondence of this institution with Kievgorsvet, the documents that this CP provided for examinations, and the like.
Persons involved - who are they?
According to the Youcontrol analytical system, Akkord LLC was registered in March 2001 in the city of Brovary, Kyiv region. Its leader is Igor Skreptsov. The founder and ultimate beneficiary of this company from the moment of its founding is Kiev resident Andrey Podolyan, also registered as a sole proprietor (obviously, it was he, according to the investigation, who purchased materials “from himself” during the implementation of agreements concluded with Kievgorsvet. - KV).
According to the Clarity Project public procurement analytics database, Accord LLC is an active participant in tenders conducted by various government and utility structures in Ukraine (mainly in Kyiv and the Kyiv region). He has 163 contracts for a total amount of 64.4 million hryvnia. The main clients of this company are Kievgorsvet (their cooperation was limited to the above-mentioned 4 agreements) and the capital construction department of the Darnitsa district state administration in Kyiv (64 contracts worth 16.7 million hryvnia).
The VIP-Crystal private enterprise was registered in July 2008 in Kyiv, but since June 2023 it has had a Zhytomyr “registration”. Its leader, founder and ultimate beneficiary is Kiev resident Alina Komach - she was the one mentioned by law enforcement in the context of criminal proceedings, because she really was an accountant of Accord LLC. This company also has little experience in working on budget contracts - it provided services for the overhaul of buildings to the executive committee and the department of culture, nationalities and religions of the Irpen City Council of the Kyiv region (7 agreements worth 793.2 thousand hryvnia).
As KV reported, in past years, the Kyivgorsvet enterprise has repeatedly appeared in criminal proceedings regarding possible “budget cuts.”
Thus, back at the end of 2017, it became known that the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine suspected a group of people led by the leadership of the Kyivgorsvet Communist Party of stealing budget money on an especially large scale. According to investigators, the corresponding scheme was organized in early 2017, when the capital was actively preparing for the upcoming Eurovision song contest - then more than 68 million hryvnia were spent on repairing lighting and creating architectural and decorative lighting for several Kyiv bridges and streets at inflated prices.
In October 2018, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) opened criminal proceedings into the possible misappropriation of budget funds by officials of the Kyivgorsvet enterprise in a preliminary conspiracy with officials of Aura Light LLC. They were talking about the possible theft of funds from the city treasury during the purchase of electric lamps in the amount of 3.9 million hryvnia.
In addition, violations in the work of the CP are regularly recorded by specialists of the Department of Internal Financial Control and Audit of the Kyiv City State Administration (KCSA). For example, in the fall of 2019, they reported that Kievgorsvet spent capital budget funds extremely inefficiently during the overhaul of outdoor lighting networks in 2018. During the audit, losses of budgetary funds amounted to 15.9 million hryvnia. This CP “worked” together with 12 contractors at 112 sites to achieve this result. In addition, instead of Polish external lighting resistances, residents of the capital actually installed domestic ones.
Also last year, auditors of the capital's mayor's office reported that in 2022, the Kyivgorsvet municipal enterprise ineffectively used more than 2.2 million hryvnia when carrying out major repairs of outdoor lighting networks on the street. Honore de Balzac (Desnyansky district) with the replacement of mercury and sodium lamps with LED ones. The reason for this was “inadequate analysis of current prices on the market of building materials, products and structures when determining direct costs when drawing up estimate documentation.” Probably, in this way, the auditors indicated that the costs of these works were inflated at the time when Kievgorsvet employees determined their cost.
Let us also recall that about a decade ago, starting in 2015, at Khreshchatyk, 36, the issue of transferring the Kyivgorsvet communal enterprise into a concession was seriously discussed - that is, for “mutually beneficial operation” to certain private investors. This will allow for better development of street lighting in the capital. However, later, around 2018-2019, city authorities abandoned this idea. The reason was, among other things, obstacles to Ukrainian legislation regarding the transfer of KPShK into a concession, as well as the desire of the Kyiv leadership to begin seriously “own” repair and maintenance of outdoor lighting at the expense of financial resources from the capital’s budget and loan funds.
Since the end of December 2022, the Kyivgorsvet Communal Enterprise has been headed by Leonid Samokhvalov. His predecessors in this post were Vladimir Krutsenko (from November 2017 to August 2022, it was the period of his “cadence” that interested the National Police as part of the above-mentioned investigation) and Yuriy Tkachenko (from August to December 2022).
This enterprise is subordinate in its activities to the Management Company "Kievavtodor", which has been headed by Alexander Fedorenko since May 19, 2020 (until July 5, 2022, he headed it as acting general director). This utility corporation is subordinate to the Department of Transport Infrastructure of the Kyiv City State Administration, which has been headed by Ruslan Kandibor since September 1, 2021. The activities of this structural unit of the capital's mayor's office have been personally supervised by the head of Kyiv, Vitaliy Klitschko, since November 9, 2021.
