An overpayment of more than 10 million was discovered at a shelter in a Kherson school

In Kherson, during the construction of a fallout shelter on school grounds, more than 10.3 million hryvnias were overpaid to the contractor from the city budget. Police believe that the technical supervision engineer failed to properly perform his duties and signed reports containing inaccurate information. The pretrial investigation has been completed, and the indictment has been submitted to the court.

This was reported by the Kherson Regional Police.

In December 2024, the Capital Construction Department of the Kherson City Council entered into a contract with a construction company to build a civil defense shelter in the Shumensky microdistrict—on the grounds of a general education school.

Between February and October 2025, the contractor submitted four work completion reports totaling nearly 24.5 million hryvnias. According to the investigation, the head of the construction company intentionally overstated the volume of work performed and the amount of materials used in the documents.

A 36-year-old technical supervision engineer—a specialist in a structural unit of the regional state administration—was responsible for monitoring the scope and quality of construction, the characteristics of materials, and the accuracy of reporting. According to law enforcement, he failed to document the defects and instead signed the certificates of completion, resulting in an overpayment of 10,327,000 hryvnias to the contractor from the city budget.

The engineer is charged with official negligence resulting in serious consequences, under Part 2 of Article 367 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The regional prosecutor’s office approved the indictment and forwarded it to the court. The penalty under this article provides for two to five years of imprisonment.

Андрій Колісніченко