Director of Kherson utility company paid salary to "dead soul"

The former director of a municipal enterprise in Kherson was served with a notice of suspicion of embezzlement. The court refused to impose a measure of restraint in the form of a personal commitment, as this is not allowed by law in the case of a serious crime.

This is evidenced by the ruling of the Zavodskyi District Court of Mykolaiv.

In Kherson, the director of the Kherson Municipal Transport Service utility company was put under investigation on suspicion of forgery and embezzlement of budget funds. According to the case, during the year he paid a salary to a person who did not actually work at the enterprise.

The period in question was from April 2023 to March 2024. According to law enforcement officers, the company's director entered false information about his deputy for legal affairs in the time sheets. The documents stated that she worked full time every day.

The salary of the "invisible employee" was paid regularly. In total, we are talking about more than 264 thousand hryvnias of accrued salary, of which more than 213 thousand hryvnias were actually paid. During the interrogation, the woman stated that she worked remotely, but could not explain what she was doing.

Her colleagues, who were questioned by investigators, said that they had never heard of such an employee and had never seen her. One of the witnesses even stated that when he was looking for legal assistance, he heard from the director that they did not have a lawyer at the company.

Investigators believe that the director deliberately forged documents to misappropriate budget funds.

He is charged with two articles of the Criminal Code: forgery in office (Part 1 of Article 366) and embezzlement of property under martial law (Part 4 of Article 191). For this, he faces up to 8 years in prison.

On June 30, the director was officially notified of suspicion. The prosecutor's office asked for a preventive measure in the form of a personal commitment, but the court refused.

In April, investigators in Mykolaiv region opened proceedings into a possible scheme of fraud in the medical sector. According to preliminary data, employees of municipal healthcare facilities could forge medical documents for several years to receive funds from the budget for the care of fictitious patients.

Анна Бальчінос