Mykolaiv Court Cancels Stadium Deal Over ₴17M in Misused Funds

A court ruling in Mykolaiv region resulted in the termination of the stadium construction agreement with the contractor, who never started work. More than UAH 17 million was allocated for the construction.

This was reported by the press service of the Mykolaiv Regional Prosecutor's Office.

The Mykolaiv District Prosecutor's Office found that in 2022, the Department of Urban Development, Capital Construction and Support of Development Projects of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration entered into an agreement with a contractor for the construction of a stadium in the Mykolaiv district.

The contract amounted to about UAH 17 million, and the construction completion date was set for December 2023. Subsequently, the parties decided to extend the contract until December 31, 2024.

However, in almost two years, the contractor has not started work and has not taken any steps to implement the project.

According to the Prozorro public procurement system, the auction for the overhaul of the Fortuna stadium in Berezanka (Berezansky district, Mykolaiv region) took place on January 10, 2022.

The initial cost of the tender was UAH 17 million 577 thousand, and the winner of the auction was Yugbudstroy LLC with a bid of UAH 16 million 873 thousand 920.

The head of Yugbudstroy LLC is Oleksiy Yukhno, and the company's authorized capital is only UAH 100.

According to YouControl, from 2016 to 2022, this company earned a total of UAH 24.3 million in government contracts. The customers were mainly departments, offices and utilities of Mykolaiv.

However, for almost two years, the contractor has not started work and has not fulfilled any obligations under the contract. At the same time, the Department did not take any measures to control and respond to the failure to fulfill the contract. This state of affairs indicates inadequate control over the use of budget funds during martial law.

Due to these violations, the prosecutor's office filed a lawsuit to terminate the contract. After that, the parties terminated the contract on their own, so the regional economic court closed the proceedings.

Also in Mykolaiv region, an official was notified of suspicion of misappropriation of budget funds allocated for the repair of a lyceum shelter. According to the investigation, on April 11, 2023, the Department of Education and Humanitarian Affairs of the Ochakiv City Council signed a contract with an individual entrepreneur to carry out routine repairs to the building of the Ochakiv Lyceum municipal institution. The cost of the work amounted to almost UAH 4 million.

In addition, in Mykolaiv, following an audit, the court ordered the arrest of entrepreneurs accused of embezzling 40 million hryvnias allocated for the construction of a bridge. The auditors questioned the credibility of the winner of the tender, a private small business from Kyiv region.

Анна Бальчінос