A new suspect has emerged in the case involving a cover-up at a kindergarten in Odesa

Odessa police officers notified a technical supervision engineer that he was suspected of professional negligence during repairs to a shelter at a kindergarten.

This was reported by the press service of the Main Directorate of the National Police in the Odesa region.

As a result of the suspect’s improper performance of his official duties, the state suffered losses totaling more than a quarter of a million hryvnias. The man faces a sentence of restricted liberty.

Earlier, Odesa law enforcement officers exposed a 45-year-old contractor who was carrying out major repairs to a basement to convert it into a protective shelter at one of the kindergartens in the Peresypsky District. Abusing his official position, the man falsified reporting documentation: he double-counted metal handrails and faucets, and installed a significantly cheaper and lighter lift instead of the one specified in the project, thereby embezzling over 318,000 hryvnias in budget funds. Investigators have completed the pretrial investigation into the charges of official forgery and embezzlement and have submitted the indictment to the court for consideration.

According to Daria Zenchenko, the lead investigator in the case, as the investigation continued, evidence was gathered regarding the illegal activities of the individual who was supposed to oversee the progress and quality of these renovations — a businessman from Odesa who holds a qualification certificate as a technical supervision engineer.

It was established that a contract for technical supervision services had been concluded between the kindergarten’s administration, the municipal agency that funds the district’s educational institutions, and the 66-year-old engineer. However, the latter performed his duties negligently. He failed to monitor the progress of construction, did not conduct verification measurements of the volume of work completed, and did not verify the technical specifications of the equipment against the design and cost estimate documentation. Furthermore, he did not check for the presence of certificates and equipment manuals, and consequently failed to notice either the double counting of materials in the reports or the fact that the installed hoist weighed only 150 kg instead of the nearly 800 kilograms specified in the project

Without taking any measures to rectify the deficiencies or drawing up the relevant reports, the engineer certified the official reports with his signature and seal. In doing so, he allowed the contractor to embezzle more than 318,000 hryvnias in budget funds.

Кирило Бойко