“Golden” on paper, but in reality terrible shelters in Kyiv: they did not find a vegetable cutter there, but there is a new miracle purchase – a mother for 3 million UAH

In the shelters of Kyiv, inspections are ongoing regarding the funds spent on their equipment. As deputies of the control commission of the Kyiv City Council say, they have seen with their own eyes how officials of the RDA simply waste the budget funds allocated to them by the city. By the way, “golden” vegetable cutters 130 thousand hryvnias each were not found in any of the capital shelters, instead a scandal broke out with sports mats, which were bought for 3 million hryvnias in one of the districts for schools.

TSN.ua found out exactly how the inspections are proceeding.

Members of the Kyiv City Council commission, which checks the use of shelter funds, say that they did not find electric vegetable cutters in the bomb shelters of the Dnipro district. According to their information, expensive equipment is in school canteens, not in shelters. And this raises many questions about the intended use of funds.

3 million worth of vegetable cutters are not in shelters

According to Leonid Yemets, procurement for school canteens takes place on a general basis, and the procurement procedure for shelters is simplified and prioritized. That is, if you bought vegetable cutters for shelter, but do not use them for this purpose, then there are obviously a number of offenses, including criminal ones, namely misuse of funds.

“Yes, we have questions about the feasibility of purchasing 12 electric vegetable slicers. According to our information, this is already the second purchase of them. That is, 24 vegetable cutters were purchased, the cost of one is 130,000 hryvnias, and the total amount spent is over 3 million hryvnias. It is wonderful that the equipment can quickly cut vegetables into peas, cubes, stars, and straws. But if at this very time we have unpainted shelters in other schools, where there are huge problems with light and toilets, then the question is: why, where is the logic? And even more so in general, 15% of shelters in the city are simply unsuitable for use. Therefore, there is a question about the effectiveness of the leadership of the Dnipro district, and specifically the Department of Education, which was engaged in conducting the tender and preparing the appropriate motivation for such purchases,” Leonid Yemets, head of the Kyiv City Council’s temporary control commission for checking the use of budget funds for the provision of shelters and checking delegated officials, tells TSN.ua powers of the RDA in Kyiv.

They bought gymnastic mats for 3 million

If the scandalous story of vegetable cutters and drums makes people wonder about the feasibility of their purchase for shelters, then the purchase of gymnastic mats for bomb shelters has corruption risks.

“Analyzing the information on Prozorro, we noticed that gymnastic mats for shelters are purchased in different areas, but there is a significant difference in their price. That is, in one district they are bought for 1.8 thousand hryvnias, and in others – for more than 4 thousand hryvnias. In the Solomyan district, 1,000 mats for shelters were purchased at the price of 3,200 hryvnias each, i.e. for a total of about 3 million hryvnias. Moreover, the specification of these products is the same – the thickness of the mats, the materials from which they are made. We wondered why this is happening? In order not to be silent, we found a manufacturer of gymnastic mats in Kyiv. They said that they wanted to purchase 500 mats for shelter, they named the specification that was specified in the tender documentation of the Department of Education of the Solomyan District. And they told us the cost – 1,600 hryvnias per piece. From this we can conclude that by spending an hour of time, we could save 1.5 million hryvnias for the city budget and the Solomian RDA. And with this money, two shelters could be brought to a more or less normal state,” explains Leonid Yemets.

It is known that the Department of Education of the Solomyan district held two tenders for the purchase of gymnastic equipment.

• The first is purchase of 780 pieces in October 2022, gymnastic equipment (equipment of civil defense structures (the simplest shelters) of educational institutions with gymnastic mats) for more than 2.5 million hryvnias.
• The second is the purchase of 120 pieces in December of the same year,gymnastic equipment (equipment of civil defense structures (the simplest shelters) of educational institutions with gymnastic mats) for more than 402 thousand hryvnias.

Gymnastic mats from the remains of foam rubber

Leonid Yemets says that he and his colleagues decided to check the availability of gymnastic mats in accordance with the list of schools in the Solomyan district where they were to be taken.

“We did it without warning, we wanted to check if there was a mother there and also see them live. So, we found these mothers. They were distributed 8 pieces to each school. Unfortunately, the quality of the gymnastic mats turned out to be much worse than what was stipulated in the tender documentation. According to the documents, the zipper should be on the wide side of the mat and she should be on the narrow side. The mats are filled inside with double-recycled foam – in fact, leftovers, which significantly reduces their elasticity. In short, the quality is very far from the requirements that were specified in the tender documentation. And the cost is doubled, by 105%“, Leonid Yemets tells us.

The deputy of the Kyiv City Council notes that the responsible persons are now justifying themselves, noting that in 2022 there were exactly such prices for gymnastic mats.

“These are just excuses, because it was last year an ordinary school in the same Solomyan district independently ordered gymnastic mats. They bought 12 pieces at a cost of 1,800 hryvnias per unit. And this is the retail price. When you take a wholesale lot, I will remind you about our experiment, we were given a discount and were ready to sell 500 pieces at 1,600 hryvnias per unit. It’s just that in this case, the school director is responsible and spends money wisely. And for some reason, the Department of Education is not used to spending budget funds wisely. And here the law enforcement agencies will need to determine their motives. After all, the price difference is twice as big! I’ll say more, it’s not only for mats, for everything else, crazy price increases are also recorded. And for some reason, the same suppliers win the tenders. All this needs to be given a legal assessment,” says the head of the Kyiv City Council commission.

Two alarms per shelter for 1.7 million hryvnias

In addition, a lot of shenanigans with fire alarms in shelters.

“In some schools, we found two fire alarms in the shelter. This is not a joke, we saw it with our own eyes. In October 2022, the Department of Education of the Solomyan District conducted such a service for the purchase of a fire alarm system for sheltering a school on Yerevanska Street – the price of the issue is 1.7 million budget funds. The first alarm at the school was installed earlier. We were told that it is not in working condition, but this is very doubtful, because they bought another one for 1.7 million hryvnias. The school didn’t just change the fire alarm system or sensors, but installed another one next to it,” says Leonid Yemets.

It is interesting that as early as 2022, one of the participants of this auction complained on Prozorro that the terms of the tender were written for only one participant, and previous purchases were made according to a similar classifier. He appealed to the conscience of the tender organizer, accusing him of embezzling state funds. But no one listened to this remark.

“Unfortunately, so far only the deputies see this, although for this we have an audit service, district management, those who appointed this management – the Cabinet of Ministers, the Office of the President. The relevant services must check the quality of tenders, as well as the compliance of the goods with the tender documentation. I’m sorry, if there is even the slightest deviation from the documentation, then the goods should not have been accepted from the manufacturer, but they are accepted. And if we had not come to check these gymnastic mats, they would have simply rotted in the basement, and no one would have been held responsible for such actions,” concludes Leonid Yemets.

Earlier, the TSN.ua site talked about the “golden” sand for the beaches of Kyiv: who and why wants to buy it for UAH 6.5 million.

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