The Deposit Guarantee Fund has a debt to the state of over UAH 62 billion. What happened to this money and why did this situation arise?
An electric car for officials costing more than two million, tenders for PR services and tidy sums for the director’s salary - these are just some of the expenses of the Deposit Guarantee Fund for individuals during a full-scale war in Ukraine. And even these cosmic sums are just a drop in the ocean against the backdrop of the 62 billion debt of the Federal Guarantee Fund to the state, discovered by the Accounts Chamber. How did the fund become a “black hole” for the budget and find itself on the verge of bankruptcy?
And why the Ministry of Finance “forgive” more than UAH 5 billion in debts to the institution reporting to it? StopCora journalist Alla Legeza understood the intricacies of public finances .
The acquisition of the Hyundai Ionic 5 electric car by the Deposit Guarantee Fund outraged the public. After all, this powerful supercar, equipped with all modern intellectual amenities, and even all-wheel drive, today costs about 2.5 million UAH in the showroom, depending on the year of manufacture and configuration. So this purchase even made it into a kind of hit parade of the most expensive cars purchased by the state during the invasion, from the publication “Our Money” .
A “car” for officials instead of helping the Armed Forces of Ukraine?
Officials should think about victory and helping the army instead of luxury cars, volunteer Alexey Yasinsky .
“This is generally some kind of sabotage against the Armed Forces of Ukraine, against volunteers, against all people, Ukrainians, defending their Motherland. When we can’t raise money to repair cars, even ambulances for our military units, and we think about how to do this ,” he comments.
And all this despite the fact that recently even Finance Minister Sergei Marchenko . This, according to him, hurts the country’s economy in the context of Russian aggression.
“Unfortunately, we still live in such a specific reality when “everything is fine” with us. But if we really want to go on a war footing, we need to reduce consumption several times, because we consume mainly imported goods and services ,” the head of the Ministry of Finance emphasized.
He also said on New Year's Eve in an interview with Forbes that the department does not know where to get money to continue mobilization.
But what is happening under the nose of the Ministry of Finance?
A state institution, which in case of a shortage of funds is credited by the same Ministry of Finance, namely the Deposit Guarantee Fund of Individuals, being almost an eternal bankrupt, in the midst of a full-scale war, buys the same electric car Hyundai Ionic 5 for 2 million 388 thousand hryvnia.
Regarding the inexpediency of this purchase and the corruption component, an appeal was registered to the State Audit Service in September last year, but the inspection service ignored it and did not give an answer for more than a year, says businessman Evgeniy Krikun .
“The purchase is, in principle, quite expensive. It's not that it's not the right time. It seems to me that it is not needed at all in the form in which it is, but should be cheaper. Considering that our soldiers are now buying cars that are not the first, not the first. hands, then I believe that such cars can also be used in the civil service. They would not affect the performance of their duties in any way ,” notes the businessman.
StopCor asked directly from the Fund for Guarantee Funds why officials needed such an expensive car?
In response to a journalist's request, the Foundation explains: it is not profitable to maintain old company cars, there are interruptions in the supply of fuel, and it is not clear how long the war will continue!
“Perhaps we can close our eyes to this purchase during the full-scale aggression of the Russian Federation, maybe there really are not enough company cars, but if it were a one-time expensive purchase and if it were not for the huge debt obligations to depositors of liquidated banks and the state budget! As we found out, since February 2022, the fund has spent almost 6 million UAH on purchasing PR services, namely advertising on TV, on websites and promotion on social networks. Together with the car, we spent more than 8.2 million UAH on this,” comments Alla Legeza.
Was the Deposit Guarantee Fund involved with the help of the Armed Forces of Ukraine?
Yes. At least, they collected funds from their employees in the amount of one day’s salary several times, according to information from their own sources. In response to StopCor's request, the fund only replied that none of its employees were forced to donate.
But the question: what kind of charitable foundations were they, how they were selected, how much money they saved, what exactly they purchased and whether they purchased them at all - they ignored them.
The Fund did not spare funds to pay for PR services during the full-scale aggression of the Russian Federation. The largest amount, namely 2 million 277 and a half thousand, was given to a certain individual entrepreneur Ivan Nikolaevich Petrenko . The services are provided by the company Vip Media, which today does not even have its own website.
And the information in the videos on Facebook is not entirely true. For some reason, the advertising is silent about the fact that the Fund is guaranteed to return only up to 200 thousand UAH. If you had a large amount on deposit in an insolvent bank, you can wait for its return for years, explains lawyer Mikhail Evseev .
How many victims did the Deposit Guarantee Fund never give back their financial savings?
At present, the exact quantity is not precisely known. But there are definitely a lot of such people, says Bohdan Tsimeyko , head of the public organization “Protection of the Ukrainian People,” which helps depositors and debtors of bankrupt banks. According to him, many people never received a refund during their lifetime.
According to the human rights activist, it is not stated anywhere exactly when the depositor of the liquidated bank will receive the rest of his funds: when the fund earns money, then it will give it back. Because this structure is self-sufficient. It receives income in the form of fees from operating banks and the sale of property of liquidated financial institutions, income from investments in securities, and if it’s really in the red, it receives loans attracted from the NBU. Or he wants money from the state budget to give people at least guaranteed funds of up to 200 thousand UAH.
“The funds of legal entities that should have been received from the sale of liquidated property, first of all, go to individuals, for the salaries of participants of the Guarantee Fund, employees of the Guarantee Fund, and their salaries are hundreds of thousands, millions of hryvnia. For what? The guarantee fund is bankrupt. He doesn’t have his own money ,” Tsimeyko emphasizes.
Who receives large salaries and for what merits?
In the request, StopKor also asked to show what income the management of the Guarantee Fund had, but they ignored the requests and advised to look for this information in the declarations.
“We searched, and what we saw simply shocked us. Of the latest statements published on the NAPC website from the director of the fund, Svetlana Rekrut, there are only changes in the property status for 2022, namely her salary and bonuses from the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion to May last year. For example, in March last year she received a salary and bonus of almost 478 thousand hryvnia, in April - 444 thousand. That is, the monthly official income was just half a million hryvnia ,” says the journalist.
It should be noted that the Accounts Chamber has already indicated in its report that such bonuses for the Fund’s management are actually groundless.
Despite the debts and signs of management inefficiency, head Svetlana Rekrut talks about the achievements and actively promotes the work of the fund, and only in November last year she gave at least six interviews.
In the request, journalists also asked to indicate the size of the Fund’s monetary obligations to the state. And although in the answer they assure that they no longer have any debts to the state budget, however, as stated in the report of the Accounts Chamber dated June 2023, the Guarantee Fund had a debt to the Ministry of Finance in the amount of 62.5 billion hryvnia and had to transfer 5.4 billion to the state budget through domestic government loan bonds (OVGZ).
But, judging by the response of the Ministry of Finance to StopCor’s request, the last amount was simply “forgiven” so that the fund did not become insolvent. But while debts to the state grow and are written off, and Ukrainians wait for years for the return of deposits, the Fund continues to charge itself huge salaries and spend crazy amounts of money on strange purchases.
What kind of dubious tenders did the FGVFL distinguish itself with?
During the large-scale war, the Deposit Guarantee Fund spent about UAH 192 million on IT services and the purchase of laptops. Is this a lot or a little? It seems very much, in view of the fact that during the same period the National Bank, which has regional branches in most regions of the country, spent four times less on IT purchases - more than 45 million, and the State Property Fund - a total of 4.5 million.
Meanwhile, the Guarantee Fund spent UAH 9 million 797 thousand on the purchase of laptops alone. A total of 330 units were purchased during the full-scale war. Why does the Foundation need so many new computers? And this despite the fact that at the same time the Fund is selling almost new, similar laptops from bankrupt banks, often at a “discount” of even 10 times the starting price. That is, during the war, the FGVFL buys hundreds of new laptops for almost 10 million, and at the same time sells the same equipment ten times cheaper.
By the way, one of the companies, Vinncom Ukraine LLC, which during this time won six tenders of the fund for a total of 17.5 million hryvnia, was mentioned in criminal proceedings on fictitious agreements for the withdrawal of tax credits and in the case of theft of money from the State Border Guard Service and the military parts.
Another company, IT-DEVELOPMENT, which without competitors took the tender for almost 2 million, was involved in criminal proceedings regarding the receipt of kickbacks by employees of the Boryspil airport and the supply of IT services at inflated prices.
Another company, IT Solutions, which won eight tenders from the fund for more than 12 million, was involved in various criminal cases for selling software at inflated prices and collusion with employees of the Ministry of Defense, the State Special Communications Agency, the State Agency for Infrastructure Projects, etc.
Let us note that StopCor in its requests asked various control bodies to evaluate these purchases, but the Accounts Chamber responded that they do not plan to conduct an audit of the fund, the Ministry of Finance noted that they have no right to interfere in the activities of the fund, and the NBU and the State Audit Service did not give an answer at all within the period specified by law.
Let us remind you that the State Audit Service, together with law enforcement officers, is investigating the case of the Lviv Arsenal company, which received money from the Ministry of Defense for the supply of a large batch of mortar rounds worth UAH 1.4 billion, but has long expired the contract and has not transferred a single mine to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The head of the department told where this money went.
