A school shelter is being built in a village in Odesa region for UAH 34 million with overpayments

The contractor with the most expensive offer and overpayments included in the estimate was selected to build a shelter for a gymnasium in the resort village of Burlacha Balka in Odesa Oblast.

As Nikcenter has found out, the Capital Construction Department of the Chornomorsk City Council ordered the construction company Premiuminvestbud to build a shelter for the Burlacha Balka gymnasium for UAH 33.9 million. Three companies took part in the auction. But despite the fact that the offer of Premiuminvestbud was UAH 5 million more expensive than the competitors' prices, officials rejected the cheaper offers.

According to the agreement, the winner has to build a dual-purpose building by September 2025, designed to accommodate 67 people - 34 students and 33 adults. Nikcenter checked the prices of the estimate and found a number of resources that were included at a price many times higher than the market price. For example, sand was calculated at 1200 UAH/cubic meter, which is five times more expensive than the average price for Odesa region, recorded in August by the state-owned National Institute for Infrastructure Development: 244.36 UAH/cubic meter. Unplasticized PVAc dispersion for Burlachebalkivska gymnasium costs 318 UAH/kg, while in neighboring Mykolaiv, a contract for the repair of a residential building was signed in October at half the price of PVAc, 163 UAH/kg.

Steel rebar prices are also significantly higher than market prices. For example, hot-rolled reinforcing steel of a periodic profile, class A-III, with a diameter of 16-18 is listed at UAH 39,000 per ton. Metinvest-Odesa offers it at UAH 32,050 per ton. Heavy ready-mix concrete, class B30 [M400], was sold for a school at UAH 4906 per cubic meter, while in Mykolaiv it is offered at UAH 3934 per cubic meter, and wholesalers in Odesa even at UAH 3050 per cubic meter.

However, it is not only concrete and rebar that the "resort shelter" is going to make money on. Thus, the estimate contains a large list of household items that will be used to equip the shelter: furniture, towels, buckets, etc. In particular, the project is to purchase four Black Mood 58198 Arino toilet seats at a cost of 476 hryvnias, with additional transportation costs of 20 hryvnias each. However, on the largest marketplace Rozetka, this equipment can be purchased today at a price of 365 hryvnias. But the contractor charged 300 hryvnias more for the Nesp1 Platinum pedal buckets than the price on the marketplaces: UAH 813 versus UAH 510 per piece. The delivery of the bucket to the resort was also more expensive, at UAH 30 per piece.

In total, Nikcenter found overpayments of about two million hryvnias in the estimate.

Premiuminvestbud Construction Firm LLC was registered in Kyiv five years ago, but entered the public procurement market only last year. The company's director is Volodymyr Merla, and the sole owner is Andriy Glazkov, a resident of Odesa. According to the YouControl analytical system, the latter is also a co-owner of Pivdennyi Zavod ZBV LLC.

Prior to its success in Burlacha Balka, the company had won only a few tenders for the construction of water supply networks for the Dachnenska village council in Odesa region. The Nashi Hroshi publication reported a twofold overpricing in this procurement. And in September this year, the court granted permission to seize documents in the criminal proceedings regarding the possible embezzlement and misappropriation of budget funds for the construction of a water supply network in Dachne village.

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