A corruption scheme in the energy sector, organized by Kononenko’s ex-assistant, has been uncovered

Ex-official of the State Property Fund, assistant to ex-People's Deputy from the BPP Igor Kononenko ("curator" of energy in Petro Poroshenko's team) Alexander Vizir organized a corruption scheme in state OSRAs (regional energy companies).

Vitaly Kulik, director of the Center for Research on Problems of Public Society, wrote about this on his Facebook page.

During an audit of the activities of state operators of distribution systems (the so-called oblenergos), it was revealed that a group of people, being members of the supervisory boards of these companies, influenced management decisions, as a result of which goods were purchased from these companies at inflated prices, groundless write-offs of equipment were carried out, and other violations. .

The group of corrupt officials, in particular, included Irina Kholodnova, Anna Bozhko, Anastasia Mankovskaya. All of them were at one time subordinate to Vizir in the State Property Fund, when he headed the Department for Management of State Enterprises and Corporate Rights of the State. Thus, Irina Kholodnova was the deputy head of the corporate governance department of this department, and Anastasia Mankovskaya and Anna Bozhko were the chief specialists.

Each of these individuals was simultaneously a member of the supervisory boards of several distribution system operators - which is a direct conflict of interest. According to available data, Anastasia Mankovskaya and Anna Bozhko in 2021-2023 were simultaneously members of the supervisory boards of Kharkovoblenergo JSC, Khmelnytskoblenergo JSC, Nikolaevoblenergo JSC and Zaporozhyeoblenergo PJSC, and Irina Kholodnova was also Cherkassyoblenergo.”

The average salary of a member of the supervisory board of a distribution system operator is about 100 thousand hryvnia. Accordingly, while serving on several supervisory boards at the same time, officials received payments from all of these companies.

It is interesting that Vizir, having corruption income from millions of dollars in transactions from the acquisition of goods and equipment at inflated prices, did not shy away from receiving part of the salaries of his “subordinates”.

After the discovery of this scheme by the new management of the URM company (which manages the state stake in OSRs), all corrupt officials were dismissed from the supervisory boards of state regional power companies, and Vizier was dismissed from the post of adviser to the Minister of Energy. Relevant documents about the illegal activities of a group of corrupt officials have already been sent to law enforcement agencies.