Road or family contract? In Kamenskoye, the mayor’s office allocated 200 million to the company of the official’s husband – investigation

In the Dnepropetrovsk region, the Kamensky city council, chaired by Andrei Belousov, continues to allocate hundreds of millions for roads - in the midst of war and likely at inflated prices

“Golden” paving stones instead of drones: it seems that it is under this slogan that in the mayor’s office of the city of Kamenskoye, in the Dnepropetrovsk region, officials are using budget money. In particular, just from the beginning of the full-scale invasion, about 200 million UAH were received from the city treasury by the Ukravtostroy company, whose owner is also the husband of the director of the economics department. And tens of millions more were spent on road clearing and information services. And all this - in the midst of war in the country.

Why did procurement in Kamensky attract the attention of not only the public and the media, but also the authorities of the Dnepropetrovsk region? Who receives multimillion-dollar City Council contracts and under what conditions? And what does the head of the city Andrei Belousov have to do with it? Details are in the investigation by Olga Levitskaya.

In the Dnepropetrovsk region, in the city of Kamenskoye, the authorities, led by Andrei Belousov, regularly allocate budget funds for the repair and improvement of the road surface. At least on paper. However, for some reason the townspeople do not notice the improvements.

“The same patches are removed and asphalted again, removed and asphalted again. And again from year to year. I've been living there for five or six years now. I see this every year,” Alexander, a local resident, told our film crew.

So who does this work and with what funds? And who initiates this?

The chair of the mayor of Kamensky has been occupied by Andrey Belousov since 2015. Before becoming mayor, he managed to work in the city’s housing and communal services sector, has experience working in the Dnepropetrovsk Regional State Administration, and even for some time was Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction and Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine. And here is how his actions are characterized by the local media: ineffective distribution of budget funds, intimidation of the opposition and aggressive PR of himself and his political force.

In particular, Olga Levitskaya notes, Belousov allocated almost 10 million UAH last year (in the second year of a full-scale war) from the budget for... information materials about how well and selflessly the city council does its job.

“But Mr. Mayor takes any criticism seriously. It is dangerous for oppositionists in Kamenskoye: as they write on social networks, one’s car was burned, and another’s office. And, according to activists, he helped send those who were completely disobedient to the front. This is such an act of dictatorship from Mayor Kamensky,” the journalist comments.

Moreover, as our editors learned from insider sources, the Kamensky City Council introduced a rule: subordinates must respond approvingly to any message from Belousov on social networks. While scrolling through the feed, it may seem that the mayor has considerable support in the city. However, as only a superficial analysis of messages on Facebook shows, all these comments are written and liked mainly by those who are associated either with the city council or with the mayor’s “Bee” party.

Another item on which millions of hryvnias from the city budget are spent annually is roads.

Although the city residents themselves are against such spending and in favor of redirecting these funds to the army.

“In my opinion, it would be better to have more aid to the military than more paving stones. Some such unimportant expenses. Our defenders need all the help we can get,” emphasizes Kamensk resident Yuri.

But the most interesting thing is that most of these contracts were concluded not with ordinary contractors, but with people from, probably, the mayor’s inner circle.

For example, the position of director of the economics department in the Kamensky City Council is occupied by a certain Galina Ermolenko. It is her husband Vadim Ermolenko who is the owner of the Ukravtostroy company, which almost constantly wins tenders for road repairs in the city.

As reporters found out, since 2019, Ermolenko has “tendered” almost 342 million hryvnia. Of these, during the war, the company of the husband of the city hall official, Kamensky, received about two hundred million from the city budget.

And fellow investigators from the “Our Money” project, who carefully looked at the prices of one of these lots, also discovered that prices for materials were inflated. In particular, the cost of dense fine-grained asphalt concrete attracts attention: here it is 7649 UAH/t, and the market price on the first website that comes across is 5293 UAH per ton. And a few months before that, the Krivoy Rog city council paid 4.5 thousand for the same material, that is, 40% cheaper than in Kamensky.

The mayor's office also has interesting “seasonal” expenses. Where does taxpayer money go in the winter?

First of all - the so-called fight against bad weather. This year, more than 23 million UAH were allocated from the Kamensky city budget to clear roads. And another 20 million are expected in another similar tender. And recently, in one of these purchases, they discovered, so to speak, a “markup” of 6 million UAH. The authorities of the Dnepropetrovsk region drew attention to city tenders.

“Specialists from the Transparency and Accountability group monitor tenders that are held in the region. Are they rational and legal? This time we paid attention to one of Kamensky’s purchases. We discovered that the contractor had inflated the cost of salt and sand. Now the city will enter into an additional agreement. The price will be reduced to the market price,” emphasized Sergei Lysak, head of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional Administration.

But while Mayor Belousov convenes urgent meetings to prepare for bad weather and promises about 20 pieces of equipment at work, on the streets of Kamenskoye the roads are cleared... only by the citizens’ cars themselves.

“I am not satisfied with the distribution of money for roads. You can see for yourself that they are not cleaned. I don’t see snowplows,” notes local resident Valeria.

What about helping the defenders and the front?

In one of the videos with the participation of the mayor, you can see how Andrei Belousov transfers assistance to the military. But in this video there is not a word about the probably inflated cost of this military ammunition by about a third.

After such monitoring of public procurement, Stopkorovites decided to ask clarifying questions to the city council using requests, but did not receive a response even after the expiration of the 20-day period.

“We expected to find out directly from the mayor why the budget in Kamensky is distributed in this way, however, unfortunately, almost the entire working day Mr. Belousov was anywhere but at his workplace, so we were only able to communicate with the head of the communications department Igor Zadorozhny ”, notes Olga Levitskaya.

But, unfortunately, the official was unable to give detailed answers to questions about the city council’s procurement.

Currently, most of the inconvenient questions to the Kamensky City Council remain open. Therefore, the editors of StopCor promise to continue to seek from the mayor and his entourage a meaningful response to our requests and is already preparing the next part of the investigation into possible abuses of office by the chairman of the city council. To be continued.

Let us remind you that in recent years the National Police has been investigating more than 10 criminal cases against the mayor of Kamensky, Andrei Belousov, and other officials. Their defendants are charged with theft of budget funds, abuse of official position and taking bribes.