Accounting chamber head suspected of real estate shenanigans

Chief of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) Yuriy Lutsenko has signed a notice of suspicion in regards to Head of the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine Roman Mahuta, who is suspected of privatizing an apartment illegally.

The PGO's Facebook page says the suspicion relates to the illegal privatization of an apartment, and a criminal investigation pursuant to Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (exceeding authority or public office) has been opened.

"A member of the Accounting Chamber with privatized real estate in Kyiv asked the head of the Accounting Chamber to provide living accommodations in central Kyiv. The law provides for granting living accommodations, not privatizing them," PGO spokeswoman Larysa Sarhan wrote on her Facebook page.

It has been established that in December 2013 the Accounting Chamber purchased apartments, among which was a two-room flat costing UAH 1.3 million at 10 Poltavska Street.

"An employee of the Accounting Chamber later requested the Accounting Chamber head to privatize the flat. The Accounting Chamber head agreed and the flat was turned over to a relative of the Accounting Chamber member and subsequently privatized and given as a gift to the Accounting Chamber employee," Sarhan said.

"I signed the notice of suspicion. I'll leave it to the group of prosecutors investigating the case to announce their findings and have given instructions to pass it on to your employees… We must submit the notice within 24 hours," Lutsenko told journalists in Kyiv, addressing Head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) Nazar Kholodnytsky in Kyiv.

Kholodnytsky, in turn, said "after the announcement we have by law two months to gather evidence and present it to a court."

Mahuta has headed the Accounting Chamber since 2012.