In Gostomel, officials embezzled millions allocated for housing reconstruction after Russian shelling
The police of Kyiv region suspect five employees of the Gostomel settlement military-civilian administration of misappropriating funds intended for the restoration of housing destroyed during the Russian aggression. This was reported by the press service of the National Police of Ukraine.
The suspects include the former deputy head of the Gostomel Civil-Military Administration, the former head of the department, and three administration employees.
The suspects entered into a number of contracts with the contractor, but the owners of the damaged buildings were forced to complete the repairs at their own expense.
The National Police clarified that in order to restore residential buildings damaged in the spring of 2022 during the hostilities, the administration entered into direct contracts with a fictitious company that allegedly specialised in the repair of residential buildings. The amount of the contracts ranged from 100,000 to 500,000 hryvnias, and in total, more than 6 million hryvnias were transferred from the budget to the contractor’s accounts.
The contractor was supposed to carry out major repairs to dozens of houses, including the replacement of roofs, windows and facades. However, the officials included overstated volumes and costs in the certificates of completion and signed documents that did not correspond to the actual situation.
As a result, the homeowners were forced to complete the restoration at their own expense.
Currently, according to the examination, the losses under only six agreements concluded between February and May 2023 amount to UAH 650 thousand.
The police are checking the suspects’ involvement in more than 40 episodes of similar activity. The total amount of losses may reach tens of millions of hryvnias.
During the searches of the suspects’ offices and residences in Kyiv and the region, the police seized $150,000, financial documents, seals, computers, cars, mobile phones and draft records.
