Officials from the Mykolaiv Capital Construction Department have been accused of colluding with a contractor

In Mykolaiv, a civic organization filed a lawsuit demanding an investigation into the alleged overpricing of construction materials. The case concerns the construction of a shelter at one of the city’s lyceums.

The Center for Public Investigations uncovered the details of the case.

On July 31, the civic organization “Platform for Public Oversight” filed a report with the police regarding a possible criminal offense. The case involved the renovation of part of the basement in Building No. 2 of Lyceum No. 38 named after V. D. Chaika, located at 147A Potemkinskaya Street.

According to the activists, officials from the Mykolaiv City Council’s Capital Construction Department may have colluded with “Master BUD-Montazh” LLC to inflate the cost of building materialsand labor. The beneficiary of the company is Dmytro Chepak.

The police did not enter the information into the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations, noting that they had found no evidence of a criminal offense. Subsequently, the civic organization challenged the law enforcement agencies’ inaction in court.

The Mykolaiv Central District Court denied the complaint. The judge concluded that the complaint did not contain sufficient objective evidence of a possible crime, and that the claims made by the activists were mere assumptions.

At the same time, this story has another context. As Intent reported, in March 2026, prosecutors filed a lawsuit against “Master BUD-Montazh” LLC for failing to fulfill a contract to reconstruct this shelter, valued at nearly 20 million hryvnias. According to investigators, the cost and scope of the work performed may have been inflated, resulting in over 2.8 million hryvnias in losses to the budget.

Although the project was supposed to be completed as early as February 2025, the contractor, in collusion with the client, illegally extended the construction deadline by 10 months through four additional agreements.

Анна Літман