Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau busts overpriced food procurement scheme in Defence Ministry – photo
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) detectives have revealed a corruption scheme that allows for significantly inflated prices for certain categories of products as part of an investigation into the Ministry of Defence's procurement of overpriced products.
Source: NABU press service
Quote: "The use of the existing procurement system allows suppliers to abuse the pricing of popular product groups: eggs are sold at a very high price, while salmon or blueberries, which are not in the military's diet, are sold at prices that are several times lower than market prices."
Details: In order to confirm the facts of abuse, detectives seize and process a huge array of primary documents of warehouse records of military units and service recipients.
The NABU photos show only a third of the documents seized during the investigation.
Background:
- On 21 January 2023, ZN.ua reported that Ukraine's Ministry of Defence buys food for the military at a price two to three times higher than in Kyiv stores. Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, who was involved in a case of embezzlement of US$580,000 during the procurement of military ammunition, was the one who signed the December agreement with the food company on behalf of the ministry.
- The report on "chicken eggs for UAH 17" (US$0.44 – ed.) was particularly controversial: the journalists' investigation referred to the price per item, although the document stated the price for 100 grams.
- The Ministry of Defence called the information about expensive food misleading and manipulative and promised to contact the Security Service of Ukraine, while Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov rejected the accusations against the Ministry of Defence. Later, Reznikov admitted in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda that he had been too emotional and promised to thoroughly check all the facts revealed by the journalists.
- Viacheslav Shapovalov, Deputy Minister of Defence, resigned and was fired on 24 January amid the scandal with the food procurement for high prices. Bohdan Khmelnytskyi was also dismissed from his position as the head of the State Procurement Department, as reported on 25 January 2023.
- Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has instructed the government to update the state procurement system for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which will include the public disclosure of prices for food and goods.
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