Odesa approves a loan from the mayor's office for flower vending machines

The tender committee for the selection of small and medium-sized businesses to receive financial support from the budget of the Odesa city territorial community decided to approve the allocation of loans from the mayor's office to two companies.

During the meeting, the commission members distributed UAH 1.2 million equally between the two applicant companies, according to the Center for Public Investigations.

The commission was approached by Amadeus Marine, a limited liability company that asked the municipality for help as compensation for interest on loans worth almost 1.8 million hryvnias, and Nikita Pinovich, a private entrepreneur who asked for repayable financial assistance worth 600,000 hryvnias.

The entrepreneur wants to set up a chain of floromats in Odesa, where you can buy a bouquet of flowers. There are already such vending machines in Lviv and Kyiv, but not in Odesa, at least according to the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur moved to Odesa from Lviv, which the commission noted as a good sign, as the opposite is usually the case because of the war.

Amadeus Marine LLC was registered in 2009 and specializes in the transportation of agricultural products. The company employs 12 people and has an investment plan that provides for the purchase of five railcars for a total of 18 million. The company borrowed 14 million hryvnias from Raiffeisen Bank and has to pay interest, which the city council could compensate for a maximum of 1.7 million according to the procedure for providing compensation, but the city council has only 1.2 million in the balance. The deputies had doubts about whether to compensate this company, as it could have used government programs such as the 5-7-9% program, and they also distrusted Raiffeisen Bank, which has not left Russia since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

The commission members were divided, so they put two proposals to the vote: to distribute the funds proportionally between both applicants equally, or to provide assistance only to the individual entrepreneur and return the rest to the budget. The second proposal was argued by the need to help small businesses and the fact that the LLC was supposedly large enough to receive help from the mayor's office.

However, MP Oleksandr Slavskyi reminded that 12 employees is not a medium-sized business. He argued that a medium-sized business is a business that employs 200 or more people, so the commission, in his opinion, was talking about microbusiness. He was supported by the chair of the commission, Hanna Pozdnyakova, who emphasized that the program is designed for small and medium-sized businesses, so it is incorrect to argue that the company is not small enough to refuse a loan.

In the end, the majority of the commission members voted for proportional distribution - 10 people.

Кирило Бойко