In Vinnytsia region, the director of a company and a Defence Ministry official will stand trial on suspicion of fraud involving housing for service personnel worth 15.5 million hryvnias.
This is stated in a press release by the communications department of the Vinnytsia Region Police.
According to investigators, in 2017 the capital construction department and a private company signed an agreement to build multi-storey residential buildings in Vinnytsia on defence-designated land.
“During the implementation of the project, the 56-year-old former acting head of the Podillia Capital Construction Department of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine failed to ensure that a mandatory expert monetary valuation of the land plot was carried out. Its value should have been taken into account when determining the share of housing for service personnel and their family members that was to be transferred to the state,” law enforcement officers said.
It is noted that the 52-year-old head of the private company, aware of this requirement, deliberately ignored it, submitted documents for the tender and became the winner in the developer selection process. He also did not subsequently initiate a valuation of the land plot.
As a result, the value of the land was not taken into account when determining the amount of housing the developer was required to transfer to the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine. The state was supposed to receive 2,800 sq m of housing.
Instead, the Defence Ministry was in fact handed 27 flats with a total area of 1,300 sq m. In this way, the state received 1,500 sq m less housing for service personnel worth 15.5 million hryvnias.
The actions of the former acting head of the department have been classified as official negligence causing grave consequences (Part 2, Article 367 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). The director of the private company is accused of misappropriating another person’s property by deception (fraud) committed on an especially large scale (Part 5, Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). The sanctions under these articles provide for up to five and up to 12 years’ imprisonment respectively, and under Part 5, Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine also include confiscation of property.
Investigators from the Main Directorate of the National Police’s investigative department, under the procedural supervision of the Vinnytsia Specialised Defence Prosecutor’s Office for the Southern Region, have completed the investigation and sent the indictments to court.