Illegal bonuses and a “left” car: the Ministry of Justice found financial violations worth 3.5 billion hryvnia

During 2019-2022, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, when using the UAH 18.1 billion allocated for the exercise of powers, committed shortcomings and violations amounting to UAH 3.5 billion. This has led to ineffective use and management of budget funds.

This was stated by the Accounts Chamber based on the results of an audit of the efficiency of using state budget funds allocated to the Ministry of Justice.

Specialists of the Accounting Chamber found that the Ministry of Justice used UAH 1.6 billion in non-compliance with legislation, UAH 1.1 billion in violation of budget legislation, and allowed ineffective management of budget allocations in the amount of UAH 649 million, of which it did not use UAH 117 million of open appropriations of the general fund state budget, unproductively spent more than 104 million UAH.

“At the same time, the Ministry of Justice has not created an effective system of effective internal control capable of ensuring compliance with legislation at all stages of planning needs, approving cost estimates and spending budget funds,” the Accounts Chamber report says.

It is reported that in 2019-2021, the Ministry of Justice inflated the costs of paying bonuses for work intensity, performing particularly important work and bonuses to civil servants by almost UAH 1.6 billion. The cost of these “reserves”, in particular in the Ministry’s apparatus, established bonuses for labor intensity from 5% to 450% of the official salary in the amount of 438.5 million UAH.

The audit confirmed that one of the main directions of reforming the public administration system - modernization of the civil service and human resource management - was not achieved by the Ministry of Justice, and the funds allocated for this in the amount of UAH 104 million were used unproductively.

A significant area of ​​use of budget funds is the Ministry’s payment for the services of the state enterprise “National Information Systems” (hereinafter referred to as SE “NAIS”) to ensure the functioning of unified and state registers. More than 1.5 billion UAH were spent on this from the state budget. Specialists of the Accounts Chamber established that the determination of the annual need of the State Enterprise “NAIS” for means of ensuring the functioning of these registers and their expenditure during the year occurred without proper control by the Ministry.

The audit found a violation of the legal basis for accounting by the Ministry of Justice, which led to the reflection in monetary terms of such an intangible asset as the ownership of the database of the Unified Register of Convicts and Persons Taken into Custody. Almost 80 million UAH were spent from the state budget on administering this database in 2020-2022.

In addition, the Ministry, using funds from the state enterprise “Enterprise of the State Criminal Executive Service of Ukraine (No. 130)”, bypassing government restrictions on spending budget funds on the purchase of passenger cars, purchased in April 2022 a Toyota Land Cruiser 150 vehicle worth over 1 .2 million UAH.

In 2018, the Accounts Chamber conducted an audit of the effectiveness of the use of budget funds allocated to the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine for leadership and management in the field of justice, and provided 12 proposals to eliminate identified violations and shortcomings. At the time of completion of the audit, 11 of them were completed.