The scandal involving the supply of allegedly low-quality canned meat to one of the military units showed that the reform of the food supply system for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, initiated and actually managed by public activists, has failed. The State Logistics Operator (SLO), created last year, which was supposed to put an end to corruption and bring deliveries to a high-quality level, as it turns out, has no influence on quality; instead, it complains about suppliers - those that it itself selected and signed with contracts. And the paradox is that GOT reports how good everything is, with some exceptions, and it will be even better. In short, everyone is to blame - suppliers, manufacturers, but not GOT.
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A week ago, GOT announced that it was stopping work with the supplier Trade Granit Invest in the Donetsk region and applying “operational and economic sanctions” to it - prohibiting it from participating in GOT tenders for 12 months. The reason was the use of a canceled test protocol for canned stewed pork during supplies to the military in the Donetsk direction.
However, subsequent events and statements not only did not add to the understanding of what really happened, but created even more confusion, similar to an attempt to hide the truth.
Based on the results of a detailed study of the identified violation, it was established that the supplier shipped products with invalid quality documents several times. This also calls into question the quality of the product itself. As of today, samples of this batch have been sent for repeated laboratory testing,” says the official statement of the DOT.
According to Dmitry Bigunets, director of risk management and compliance at GOT, as a result of the analysis it was established that Trade Granit Invest “illegally used the test protocol for a larger volume of products than it had approved.” But it remains unclear how concepts such as “detailed study” and “doubts” relate.
Also in the GOT message it is said that “at the moment, the process of monitoring the compliance of batch volumes with those declared during selections for high-quality research and specified in test reports is not automated” and that the State Logistics Operator plans to digitalize the process of compliance of actually shipped volumes with those stated in test reports, namely – introduce a system solution in the IT system for managing the supply of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.” In other words, the GOT “stuck” the violation if it really happened and was proven (spoiler – no, it wasn’t).
In fact, the termination of the contract with this supplier was provoked by an article published on October 7 in the NGL publication, which was addressed by a military man: according to him, some canned food is impossible to eat, and he sent 10 different cans to the editor. But, as Alexey Golobutsky from the Situation Modeling Agency noted, “the journalists wanted to compare these products with similar ones that are on sale. And this is very true! But only two cans were found. Therefore... we gave up on comparative analysis.”
He also drew attention to the video recorded by journalists: in it they try these canned goods and draw conclusions about their quality.
“The conclusions were at a very high professional level, and it was like several housewives trying the dishes of their most beautiful girlfriend: “oh, here I somehow have a lot of salt”, “here is a small piece”, “here is a piece big”, “there’s only fat here”, “there’s some skin here”, “somehow it doesn’t look good”, “these four cans are equally complex.” The experts worked without sparing their belly, although from the video it is not clear what exactly they are trying,” Golobutsky noted with irony, but from the video it is really unclear which canned foods the journalists are commenting on, and the main thing is that the test is of the “like/dislike” type. cannot serve as evidence of the manufacturer’s guilt, it is a matter of taste, nothing more.
However, the journalists came to the conclusion that “nine out of ten cans belong in the trash bin.” This was enough for GOT to begin the procedure for terminating the contract with the supplier.
Journalists also reported that for an objective analysis, canned food should be tested in a laboratory. But due to lack of funds, they ordered the analysis of only one can. The problem is that one sample is not enough to recognize an entire batch as being of poor quality. However, only one bank was checked.
“Yes, the journalists knew that one can was not enough to analyze, but they thought to themselves: “Well, to hell with it!” Well, they shouldn’t spend their own money on searching for the truth, right?” said Golobutsky.
When journalists received the findings of the State Research Institute for Laboratory Diagnostics and Veterinary and Sanitary Expertise, the following facts emerged.
First, the can of canned food was checked according to 36 parameters. According to the experts' conclusions, these canned foods fully comply with the standard, except for three parameters, in particular, that can had more salt and less meat, and the pieces were also the wrong size (large or small - not specified).
Secondly, experts stated that in terms of “color, smell and taste” the canned food fully complies with the standard. There were also no harmful impurities or substances.
Thirdly, the laboratory did not say that these canned foods should not be eaten.
Fourthly, they did not come to the conclusion that such canned food should be withdrawn from sale, but only referred to “current legislation,” that is, they abdicated responsibility for the interpretation of the laws of such products. We assume that they left this decision to the court (which never happened and, most likely, never will).
Despite the fact that these canned foods meet the standards by 99%, in particular, they smell and taste normal, the journalists made their own conclusion: “The examination results confirmed the worst assumptions. Specialists from the State Research Institute came to the conclusion that the samples of canned pork “Stewed Pork” provided to them do not meet the GSTU in terms of organoleptic and physicochemical indicators. This means that such canned food cannot be sold or consumed.” It is easy to see that this is a deliberate untruth. Follow the link for the expert's conclusion.
Meanwhile, GOT said that it was “taking precautions to prevent a repeat of the situation with the stew: “As we previously reported, the supplier of the stew, Trade Granit Invest, supplied products to the Ukrainian Armed Forces under canceled test protocols. This is a significant violation."
“There are no canceled protocols, but there is a protocol with positive test results from the Department of Food Safety and Veterinary Medicine of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine,” Golobutsky noted.
Why do we need real experts?
So, it was the publicity in the media that became the basis for terminating the contract with the supplier. And only then did the GOT announce that it had used the test report for a larger volume of products than was approved.
Member of the Anti-Corruption Council under the Ministry of Armor Dana Yarovaya said that in this case the supplier had a conditional protocol for 10 thousand units of goods, but delivered 30 thousand. Whether this really happened is unknown.
Yarova explains this as follows: “The GOT agreements did not provide for each batch of canned products to provide a veterinary report and to take (samples) from each batch for laboratory testing.”
A logical question arises: why was there no corresponding clause in the GOT agreements? And isn’t GOT himself to blame?
Yarovaya also said that “a laboratory test is currently underway and based on the results, law enforcement agencies will classify this situation.” Thus, this is direct evidence that GOT terminated the contract with the supplier even before the laboratory and law enforcement authorities confirmed his guilt. Is this normal?
By the way, it is not clear why Yarovaya is talking specifically about the veterinary conclusion, because canned meat contains not only products of animal origin. She probably cannot know exactly how food products are tested, since, like journalists, she is not an expert in this field, but willingly comments on the quality of the products.
Other members of the Anti-Corruption Council demonstrate a similar level of expertise.
Thus, Gennady Krivosheya published a photo of chicken meat in which there was a syringe. “I wonder what the Mit Prom supplier will say to this?” – he asked rhetorically and asked the bunker to pay attention.
Here again we see that DOT is presented not as a responsible body, but as some kind of blind victim that everyone wants to mislead.
The topic is picked up by another Anticorrada member, Tatyana Nikolaenko, who stated that “pumping meat with water is the best way to reflect the margin within the catalogue, specially trained intermediaries have already bought Chinese equipment to turn a ton of meat into one and a half, or even two.” She did not provide any evidence. It is very doubtful that manual syringes can double the weight of meat when we are talking about hundreds and thousands of tons.
DOT did not react to this scandal at all: it did not confirm that the meat was really pumped with water, that the supplier “Meet Prom” actually did this and that the contract with him was also terminated (no, for some reason it was not terminated).
That is, members of the Anti-Korsovet are guided by rumors and operate with assumptions, while directly blaming specific companies, in this case, Mit Prom.
Seven nannies
These cases of complaints about the quality of food from the military are far from the first, but DOT has never admitted its guilt in this state of affairs. To roughly generalize, the food quality control system for the Ukrainian Armed Forces has not changed in recent years, but the fact is that this is exactly what DOT should have done from the beginning of its activities, but has not done so far.
According to DOT director Arsen Zhumadilov, his department has neither the resources nor the right to laboratory analysis of food.
He explained that the Ministry of Defense has a structural unit called TSUKIYA, which checks products before they enter the army. Canned meat, meat and vegetables and fish are tested in a laboratory. These laboratories are run by a service called the Food Safety Authority (FSA).
“That is, inspections for safety and quality are, in principle, their powers. We have neither the mandate nor the resources for this. Somehow, the stew that came to the attention of journalists turned out to be of poor quality. Now they are determining whether the laboratory test was really carried out improperly, or whether this was a certain action on the part of the supplier and manufacturer, who, having received this protocol for a batch in a certain quantity, actually supplied a larger quantity,” Zhumadilov said.
But he announced this after the contract with the supplier was terminated and he was prohibited from participating in tenders all year round. Why didn't you wait for the results of the study?
Perhaps the reason is that the procurement system, “reformed” under the influence of the public, is structured in such a way that money for food is spent through one structure of the Ministry of Defense, and quality is controlled through another. That is, the one who actually pays the money (GOT) is indifferent to the quality, because someone else is responsible for the laboratory tests.
Everything will be fine
More often now you can only hear about GOT's plans for the future, and not about the present. For example, the director of the GOT nutrition program, Galina Litosh, commenting on the case of allegedly low-quality canned food, in every possible way avoided answering exactly this case, focusing only on the fact that everything will be fine either next week or next year.
So, according to Litosh, “the percentage of moisture rationing in meat and fish has not yet been determined; this percentage will be determined next week.” That is, we can draw the obvious conclusion that the claims regarding chicken meat that Krivosheya and Nikolaenko wrote about are still unfounded, right?
Also, according to Litosh, complaints from the military most often come about vegetables, fruits and chicken. But we have not heard about the termination of contracts with suppliers of vegetables and fruits. “As for stewed meat and canned food, an appropriate inspection protocol must be in place together with the Ministry of Defense,” Litosh said, but did not explain why the protocol was not in effect, but made it clear that GOT was innocent. Again.
She said that "complaints from the military are common, so these products are being recalled and suppliers are replacing them or paying fines." But she added: “We are talking about tens of tons of products, so the supplier also might not have seen the needle in the meat.”
And it seems that one supplier is very bad and is being punished, and the second is simply bad, but he is not to blame, they say, it doesn’t happen to anyone.
The statistics of violations by suppliers are also interesting.
According to another member of the Anti-Corruption Council under the Ministry of Defense, Alexander Gerashchenko, Trade Granit Invest, with whom the contract was terminated on the basis of a dubious publication and even before the completion of the investigation, has only 2 (two) recorded violations. At the same time, Contract about Reserve LLC has 34 violations, Mit Prom LLC - 51, ASICS GROUP LLC - 114, and Bussky Cannery - 176 (!). Does this mean that the supplier with fewer complaints was punished?
Gerashchenko is confident that DOT conducts random inspections, and real violators of contract terms remain despite numerous violations.
“A few days ago, I noticed how DOT terminated the contractual relationship with the Trade Granit Invest company. As far as I understand, this happened on the basis of an information article by journalists and a military man who complained about the quality of canned products. Of course, I welcome such efficiency in the work of the State Fire Department and the desire to understand this situation. As a result, without even waiting for the results of the test with the company, they are ready to break off relations. But... Why, in the above cases, in the presence of established violations and facts of delivery of low-quality products, were the contracts not terminated?” , - Gerashchenko is surprised.
He publicly appealed to the GOT with a request “not to be selective in relation to suppliers.” In other words, a member of the Anti-Korsovet directly accuses the GOT of bias.
But statements by his other colleagues indicate an attempt to remove responsibility from DOT and transfer it only to suppliers.
“When the country is led by journalists and public activists instead of professionals, a scandal with poor quality food for the military is a logical development,” says Golobutsky. - So to our cries of “shame!” disgrace!" and blind faith in everything written by amateurs, the competitors obtained in the struggle several more million government orders. And no one, no one read the conclusions of real experts. Even in the GOT or the Ministry of Defense. Although why would they do this when expert conclusions are made by journalists, and decisions are made by public activists? It was the activists who “reformed” the procurement system, remember? And this is the result."
But the final result, as it turned out, is still very far away. And here we are witnessing another problem: the anti-corruption community sees the final result of the reforms differently, so it is unknown what exactly will happen after all these experiments that are being carried out on the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Here are some examples of disagreements in the activities of the GOT and the difference in views of members of the Anti-Korsovet.
So, when asked by journalists where the military should go if they were brought low-quality products, Dana Yarovaya answered: “Where should they go? Dear military personnel, find me on Facebook, I am ready to personally respond to your complaints.”
It should be noted that Ms. Yarovaya is not an employee of the GOT and the Ministry of Defense, she is not responsible and does not have the right to make decisions about the quality of products, she is not authorized to deal with issues of quality and production, like anyone else. And it seems strange that the military should search for him on Facebook, and not have official channels of communication with the GOT or other departments of the Ministry of Defense. Obviously, this is a way of resolving product quality issues that is illegal.
Nikolaenko also spoke about the procurement system in general. “The transition to purchasing from a real manufacturer, and not “Rakotits and Butterflies,” should happen as quickly as possible,” she said. Thus, this member of the Antikorsovet considers the current supply system to be ineffective, but she does not blame the GOT for this, which was created precisely to control the processes of food supply, and did not cope with this task.
At the same time, Ms. Litosh from GOT says that the problem is not who is capable of producing products, but who and how will deliver them to the military, especially to the combat zone - this is precisely the task that suppliers perform.
Vladimir Omelyan, a former minister of infrastructure and now a military man, asked the question: “I cannot understand why large chains do not participate in the auction and do not supply food to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
Nikolayenko responded that retailers “are afraid to work with the Ministry of Defense, they are afraid of the security forces, they are afraid of reputational losses, there is no forecast of orders, now prices are reviewed once every quarter or six months.” It is in such conditions – uncertainty and pressure from the security forces – that current suppliers operate.
Gerashchenko added: “In fact, the same ones remained on the market. Why? But because conditions were not created for others to enter, in particular for the emergence of a direct manufacturer, rather than gasket companies.”
Shouldn't the GOT initiate the creation of such conditions? Instead, he created the conditions under which scandals with canned food and “pricked” meat occur.
The contradictions among anti-corruption activists, as well as among the GOT and the Ministry of Defense themselves, are obvious. At the same time, almost all of them shift responsibility only to suppliers and manufacturers, as if GOT really had nothing to do with it.
Former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny, during the launch of the GOT, stated what exactly he expects from the GOT: the fight against corruption, improvement of the procurement process and quality.
It is obvious that next year the system will not change for the better, and cases of delivery of low-quality products and selective punishment of suppliers will be repeated again and again.
Let us recall that the annual budget of two agencies – the State Logistics Operator and the Defense Procurement Agency – is about UAH 280 billion. or 7 billion dollars.
