NABU and SAPO exposed a corruption scheme in the construction industry involving top officials
NABU and SAP exposed a large-scale corruption scheme in the construction industry involving high-ranking state officials. Suspicions of abuse of official position, receipt and provision of illegal benefits in particularly large amounts were announced to several persons involved in the case.
Among the suspects are the former state secretary of the Ministry of Regions, who is now a member of the board of Naftogaz of Ukraine, a former adviser to the minister, a former director of a state-owned enterprise, a developer who organized the scheme, and an official of a construction company.
According to the investigation, the developer developed a mechanism for illegally obtaining a plot of land in Kyiv for the construction of a residential complex. For the implementation of this scheme, he turned to the leadership of the Ministry of Regions, which ensured the transfer of the plot to a state-controlled enterprise. This company, in turn, in violation of the law, concluded investment contracts with a certain construction company.
According to the terms of these contracts, the developer had to transfer to the state a part of the apartments in new buildings in proportion to the value of the land plot. In order to reduce the number of transferred housing, the estimated value of the land and existing buildings on it was artificially lowered by almost five times. The difference between the underestimation and the real market value exceeded 1 billion hryvnias. It is for this amount that the state could not receive the real estate in case of fulfillment of the agreements, but the further implementation of the scheme was prevented by the seizure of the plot at the request of NABU and SAP.
For successful assistance in the scheme, the developer “thanked” ministry officials and persons close to them with significant discounts on apartments in already built residential complexes. The price per square meter for them was from 1 to 8 thousand hryvnias, while the market price of such apartments was about 30 thousand hryvnias per square meter. The total amount of illegal profit reached 16.8 million hryvnias. At the request of NABU and SAP, most of the apartments obtained under this scheme were also seized.
The developer, an official of a construction company and a former director of a state-owned enterprise are already accused in another case of NABU and SAP, which concerns the attempt to bribe a high-ranking official of the Ministry of Reconstruction with apartments.
