This year, Ukrainians will pay more than 29 million UAH out of their pockets for the business trip of employees of the Defense Procurement Agency, which was headed and controlled by Arsen Zhumadilov.
Political expert Alexey Golobutsky writes about this, having analyzed the work of state-owned enterprises created last year - the Defense Procurement Agency and the State Logistics Operator.
The enterprises are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense and were created under the slogans of procurement reform for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The expert’s attention was drawn to the fact that hundreds of millions of hryvnias are spent from the budget on the maintenance of state enterprises, but it has not yet been possible to create transparent and effective procurement mechanisms for the army.
UAH 29 million is one example of how much money goes from the budget to employees of new enterprises. The indicated amount included payment for tickets, hotels, car rentals and similar services for employees of the Defense Procurement Agency.
“If she spent such a colossal sum on business trips alone, a logical question arises: has she really turned out to be so effective in the short time of her existence? Spoiler: no, it didn't. Zhumadilov’s agency has only found a short way to disbursing colossal sums from the budget,” Golobutsky emphasized.
He drew attention to the recent tender for the supply of food products for the Armed Forces of Ukraine for UAH 3.7 billion, which was announced by the Agency.
“Even though Zhumadilov promised transparent and equal conditions for everyone, in the terms of the tender the Agency prescribes a requirement for participants: to have at least 25 premises/warehouses/complexes in one cluster. Most likely, one of the bidders has exactly this number of premises, so the conditions were written specifically for him. So much for transparency,” wrote the political expert.
Also, he noted, there is another interesting detail of the tender: the cost of the food set unexpectedly increases from 120 to 139.38 UAH, as a result of which the cost of the lot increases by 1.5 billion UAH. Golobutsky believes that this is a fat catch for Zhumadilov’s Agency, because the mentioned state-owned enterprises are financed by a commission in the amount of 0.4% of the amount of each contract.
“So, they are not interested in the quality or reduction in price of lots, but exclusively in their rise in price. Because more millions will flow into the accounts of the state-owned enterprises themselves. 0.4% seems like a small commission at first glance. But due to the massive scale of purchases for the army, these are hundreds of millions of hryvnias, which end up in the pockets of Ministry of Defense officials,” the expert concluded.
He also emphasized that one question remains for Zhumadilov: “Where are the reforms promised?”
