Department of Administrative Services beheaded in Odesa

Acting Odesa Mayor Ihor Koval has dismissed Anastasia Potapenko, head of the Department of Administrative Services.

According to the Center for Public Investigations, the relevant order was published by the press service of the Odesa municipality.

The reason for the dismissal was her application. Anastasia Potapenko had been heading the department since 2020. At that time, the previous director of the Department of Administrative Services of the Odesa City Council, Yevheniia Abramova, announced that she was resigning.

In August 2024, police searched the department and served one of Anastasia Potapenko's deputies with a notice of suspicion. At the time, investigators said that employees of the relevant department artificially reduced the number of free places in the electronic queue of the ASC by making unauthorized changes to the automated system. As a result, citizens could not receive services legally on the dates and times they needed.

According to the results of the expert opinion, the Department's employees made more than 36 thousand unauthorized changes to the local ASC system during 2021-2023.

And in April 2023, an investigating judge of the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv allowed officers of the Main Department of the National Police in Odesa Oblast to search the offices of the heads of the Department of Administrative Services of the Odesa City Council, located in the New City Hall building on Kosovska Street. The police also believed that the director of the department had conspired with one of her deputies to artificially reduce the possible number of Odessans in the electronic queue for the city's administrative service centers. Then they offered to buy places in the queue for money. According to investigators, this service cost 1 thousand hryvnias per person. The estimated number of citizens who, according to law enforcement, received places in the queue for money is 150-300 people per day.

Кирило Бойко