Companies associated with Kolomoisky inflict multimillion-dollar losses on state budget in Ivano-Frankivsk region – expert
KYIV. March 9 (Interfax-Ukraine) – PBS construction company LLC, associated with the businessman and the former head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional state administration Ihor Kolomoisky, when performing road contracts under the Big Construction project in Ivano-Frankivsk region, significantly overestimated prices for materials and work, causing multi-million dollar losses to the state budget.
This was stated by an expert, a member of the volunteer assault troops of the Ministry of Defense in 2014 - 2016 Nelly Stelmakh at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday.
According to her, only under five contracts for the construction of roads in Ivano-Frankivsk region, analyzed by experts on the initiative of CoST Ukraine, the company, which is part of the circle of Oleksandr Shevchenko, a partner of the oligarch Kolomoisky, inflicted possible losses on the state budget in the amount of UAH 374 million.
"Having studied the issue of monopolization of procurement in Ivano-Frankivsk region, we saw that the share of PBS LLC in procurement contracts of Ivano-Frankivsk region grew in money almost six times, and in percentage terms – three times. If we see that in 2018 year, about 9% of the money from the total amount of procurement was received by PBS, then in 2019 it was already 22%. But we have a flagrant situation in 2020, when PBS received more than 34% of the funds under public contracts. This is what is reflected on the ProZorro platform," Stelmakh said.
She said that the said company constantly inflated the cost of materials and work, while other companies did not inflate them, and some even reduced them.
"If we compare the contracts that are presented on the ProZorro platform in 2019 and 2020, we will see that some positions have grown two and a half to three times. If we compare the 2019 contract with the 2020 contract, we will see that road signs grew from two to two and a half times, and concrete form panel – almost three times. This price increase, if multiplied by the volume of contracts in 2020, only for this contract is UAH 18 million. If our state has bought oxygen concentrators, which are very much needed in Ivano-Frankivsk region, using these UAH 18 million, we could have bought around 600 units," the expert said.
