The National Anticorruption Bureau and the Specialized Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office have served the former Minister of Infrastructure and his former first deputy with a notice of suspicion of abuse that caused the state to incur losses of more than $30 million, the NABU press service has reported.
According to the investigation, in July 2015, the minister, together with his deputy (at that time also the chairman of the Tariff Council of the Ministry of Infrastructure), ensured the adoption of an order according to which private companies began to collect tonnage dues from ships in the Pivdennyy seaport along with Ukrainian Sea Port Administration (in a 50:50 ratio).
Whereas, according to the law, the collection of such dues is the exclusive prerogative of the USPA as the user of the port's water area owned by the state.
The investigation found that the order was adopted without proper economic justification and contrary to the comments of the Department of Economics and Finance of the Ministry of Infrastructure and USPA. At the same time, one of the beneficial owners of the mentioned private companies was a person suspected by the NABU and the SAPO of corruption at the joint-stock company State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine and who is wanted and under sanctions of the National Security and Defence Council.
The NABU does not name the minister, but open data shows that it is Andriy Pyvovarskyy.
In 2014-2016, Pyvovarskyy served as the minister of infrastructure of Ukraine, and before that he worked for the Continuum group of companies and Dragon Capital investment company.