The Anti-Corruption Centre has already promised to expose other cases of incompetence and corruption in the defence minister’s areas of responsibility.
Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov
The State Audit Service of Ukraine has confirmed that the Defence Ministry had been purchasing overpriced food for the military. The head of the State Audit Service, Alla Basalaeva, said this in an interview with Glavcom.
For example, the audit confirmed the purchase of eggs at a price of 17 hryvnias a piece, while the price in the supermarket was three times lower.
“Yes, they bought 17 hryvnias apiece. A dozen – 170 hryvnias. Formation of orders from a catalogue in some way simplifies the process of food procurement, but allows manipulating prices plus logistics”, – said Basalaeva.
Overall, the Defence Ministry audit was a tough exercise, she said. During the audit, the State Audit Service recorded many violations. However, Basalaeva refused to provide details because the act is secret.
She said that during the inspection they also recorded items of inadequate quality: bullet-proof waistcoats and shotgun helmets do not meet the declared class. The head of the State Audit Service explained that the Defence Ministry refuses to accept such goods and they simply lie in warehouses. In other words, there is no one to return the goods and the money is 100% paid.
When asked whether there is a lot of such low-quality goods, Basalaeva said that no. However, according to her, it still forms a hole in the budget of the state at war.
The head of the Anticorruption Center, Vitaliy Shabunin, has already reacted to the data of the State Audit Service. He assured that the centre will expose incompetence and corruption in other areas of responsibility of Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov.
“So, Reznikov has been blatantly lying all this time. Lied to Ukrainian and Western journalists. Lied to the public. And, I reasonably assume, lied to the president. Let me remind you that they were going to overpay/steal 4 billion hryvnias on one contract alone. Now it has become obvious. Now the responsibility for the repetition of such attempts lies personally with Zelenskiy and his deputies. We will expose incompetence/corruption in other areas of Reznikov’s responsibility,” Shabunin wrote on Facebook.
