April 23, 2021, 4:58 p.m.
The Odesa Center for Public Investigations (OPI) continues to analyze the declarations of the people's deputies of Odesa and the region. IzbirKom has already published materials about the declarations of the mayor of Odesa, the head of the Odesa Regional Council, the head of the Odesa Regional State Administration and their deputies. This time, the CPR has analyzed the information published by the National Agency on Corruption Prevention on MPs representing Odesa region and selected the most interesting points for you.
It should be noted that all 18 MPs (11 majoritarian MPs and 7 MPs elected from the lists) submitted their 2020 income declarations on time.
Business activities and charitable assistance: how MPs earned money
Recently, the State Tax Service in Odesa region reported that 82 residents of Odesa region declared income of more than UAH 1 million last year, totaling UAH 348.2 million. There are millionaires among MPs as well - the annual income of seven MPs reached one million hryvnias.
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Ihor Vasylkovsky declared the largest amount of income - UAH 3 million 12 thousand 146, a significant part of which was income from the alienation of securities and corporate rights - UAH 1 million 50 thousand, as well as rent payments - UAH 659 thousand 416.
However, taking into account the total family income, Ihor Vasylkovskyi lost out to the Goncharenko family, who took the first place in the top 5. Last year, Oleksiy Hon charenko himself received only UAH 445,880 in salary and a little over UAH 28,000 in interest. By the way, his salary is the lowest among all the MPs from Odesa region. Anton Kisse earns the most - UAH 524,745, but his family's total income did not allow him to make it to our top 5. As for Oleksiy Honcharenko's wife, last year she earned UAH 4 million 685 thousand 993 from her business.
MP Oleksiy Leonov is the third highest earner. Apart from his salary and reimbursement of expenses related to the performance of his parliamentary duties, he had no other sources of income. However, even this amount cannot be called modest - UAH 1 million 320 thousand 119. His wife's income from entrepreneurial activity amounted to UAH 927,460, and from the alienation of movable property - UAH 1.5 million. What is unclear is that the declaration for 2019 does not contain any property from the alienation of which the income indicated this year could have been received.
Last year, Anatoliy Urbanskyi received only his salary at his main place of work - UAH 452,387. His wife's income amounted to UAH 2 million 699 thousand 107.
Mykola Skoryk rounds out the top five, who, like Oleksiy Leonov, declared only income from his parliamentary activities - UAH 1 million 31 thousand 687.
Last year, Oleksandr Tkachenko 's salary amounted to UAH 500,268, but taking into account compensation and alienation of property, the MP's total income amounted to UAH 1,377,458.
The lowest income among MPs representing Odesa region was declared by Tetiana Plachkova (UAH 510,398), Serhii Koleboshyn (UAH 516,776), and Solomiia Bobrovska ( UAH 533,37). It is interesting that the latter listed among her sources of income the assistance from the Charitable Organization "Bohdan Hawrylyshyn Family Charitable Foundation" in the amount of UAH 26 thousand 19.
MPs' savings: they borrow, keep it "under the mattress" and do not trust banks
We converted all monetary assets of MPs, which they keep in cash and on bank accounts in different currencies, into hryvnias at the NBU exchange rate as of December 31, 2020. We did not take into account funds borrowed from third parties or savings in cryptocurrency. We will return to them later.
It is worth noting that judging by the fact that the money on the accounts of all MPs representing Odesa region is much less than cash, they do not trust financial institutions: 165.6 million hryvnias "under the pillows" versus 7.1 million hryvnias in bank accounts.
*For comparison, according to Open Budget, the executed budget of the city of Ananieva for 2020 is UAH 25 million.
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Anton Kisse and his wife have the most cash and bank accounts - UAH 45 million 519 thousand 610, of which only UAH 528 thousand 862 is kept in bank accounts. For comparison, the total expenditures of the city of Bolhrad (the center of the district whose interests Anton Kissé represents in the Rada) in 2020 amounted to UAH 49 million.
The rest of the top five are significantly behind. Thus, Anatolii Urbanskyi, whose wife has no savings, is in second place with the amount of savings of UAH 19 million 823 thousand 585.
Oleksiy Honcharenko and his wife are in third place with UAH 17 million 911 thousand 689. The lion's share of this amount is his wife's savings - UAH 14.5 million, which are kept in cash in the family.
Yulia Didenko (UAH 15 million 303 thousand 306) and Stepan Cherniavsky (UAH 14 million 638 thousand 494) took the fourth and fifth places in the top with their families, respectively.
And returning to the issue of money lent to third parties, we note that the Cherniavsky family is the undisputed leader in this category. The amount borrowed by the couple is UAH 5 million 182 thousand 860.
Ihor Vasylkovskyi and Serhii Koleboshyn have no money in their bank accounts at all. The latter, by the way, has the least of all savings - 150 thousand hryvnias.
We cannot ignore the biggest debtors. The total amount of money borrowed by the Vasylkovsky couple reaches almost UAH 3 million, and Mykola Skoryk mentioned in his declaration that he borrowed UAH 2 million from former Odesa City Council deputy Oleksandr Edelman .
"Iron horses" of MPs
Five MPs(Yulia Didenko, Tetiana Plachkova, Oleh Kolev, Oleksii Honcharenko and Serhii Koleboshyn) did not declare any cars that they or their families owned. However, Tetiana Plachkova has a free right to use the car owned by Maria Plachkova.
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Mykola Skoryk also does not officially own a car. However, he uses for free a Toyota Highlander belonging to the aforementioned former deputy of Odesa City Council Oleksandr Edelman and a Mercedes-Benz ML 350 owned by Olha Marchenko. His wife owns two cars at once (Toyota Land Cruiser 2014 and 2020). It is worth noting that the date of purchase of one of these cars (which is logical) is 2020, but there is no information on this transaction in the section on expenses.
A similar situation can be seen in several declarations at once: Andrii Kostin, Ivan Shynkarenko, and Oleksii Leonov. In all three cases, the date when their wives acquired the right to cars is 2020, but there are no expenses.
The leader in car ownership is Ihor Vasylkovskyi, who owns 10 vehicles: five trucks and five cars.
Stepan Cherniavskyi owns eight vehicles, the vast majority of which are trucks and trailers.
Anatoliy Urbanskyi 's family is in third place with four cars. Three of them belong to his wife, and one is used by him.
Two MPs have three vehicles each. Oleksiy Leonov 's family has three cars, and Anton Kisse 's family, in addition to cars, also has a boat.
In addition to a 2015 Mitsubishi Outlander , Oleksandr Tkachenko also has a container trailer and uses two 2018 Toyota Corollas, one of which belongs to his partner and the other to his brother Andrii Tkachenko.
MPs who own land
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The four landowning deputies are headed by Stepan Cherniavskyi. His family owns land plots in Odesa, Chornomorsk, and Oleksandrivka in Kherson Oblast. In total, they own 19 hectares of land.
The second place goes to Anton Kisse's family, which owns more than 15.6 hectares of land in Ovidiopol, Avanhard and Yevhenivka in Tarutino district. The vast majority of land plots belong to his wife.
The third largest landowner among the MPs is the family of Ihor Vasylkovskyi, who owns 2.6 hectares of land in Odesa, Bilohorodka, Kyiv-Svyatoshynskyi district, Kyiv region, and Velyka Kardashyntsi, Kherson region.
The top four landowning MPs are rounded out by Oleksandr Horeniuk, whose wife owns a two-hectare plot of land in the village of Batky, Poltava region.
As we can see, the geography of land plots is not limited to Odesa or adjacent regions. For example, Mykola Skoryk 's wife owns a land plot in Yalta, and Yulia Didenko owns land in Hungary.
MPs' real estate: rented, rent-free, and bought abroad
Artem Dmytruk and Bohdan Torokhtii did not declare any residential real estate at all. Andrii Kostin, Ivan Shynkarenko and Anatolii Urbanskyi do not have their own houses or apartments, but their wives do.
Mykola Skoryk's family has a free apartment in Kyiv and Odesa, as well as two garages. Yulia Didenko has "another right to use" an apartment in Odesa. What exactly is meant by this is unclear. A similar wording can be found in Artem Dmytruk's declaration: "the right of actual residence" in a 207.4 square meter house in Odesa.
You can find out which MPs have more square meters of real estate in our infographic.
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As for the leaders in non-residential real estate ownership, the first place is occupied by Stepan Cherniavsky, who owns 576 square meters of space. This includes both trade pavilions and the premises of a former poultry house.
The second place goes to the wife of Ihor Vasylkovsky, who owns a non-residential building of 520.9 square meters in Nova Kakhovka.
Anton Kisse and his wife took third place with 477.5 square meters (parking lot, garage, shop, etc.).
It is worth noting that in addition to the land plot in Hungary, Yulia Didenko owns a part of an apartment in Donetsk, an apartment in Kyiv, and a non-residential building in Truskavets.
Anton Kissé and his wife own four apartments and one garage in Bulgaria. It is worth noting that last year the Kissé family acquired rights to several real estate objects at once: two houses, four land plots, an apartment and a non-residential building in Odesa. However, there is no information about this in the section "Expenses and transactions of the declarant".
Connoisseurs of Swiss watches, owners of paintings, shareholders of Facebook, Tesla and Microsoft
Some MPs have registered trademarks or signs. Ihor Vasylkovskyi has the most such "property" among the MPs representing Odesa region - seven. Oleksiy Leonov and his wife share four trademarks (Chef's Hand, Sila-Eda, Lubimova, Slow Piggy).
Only two of them declared shares. Mykola Skoryk owns shares in Imexbank, IC Primorye-Invest, and ChTK, with a nominal value of UAH 1.67 million. The value of Ivan Shynkarenko 's wife's shares is unknown, but the list includes 18 companies at once, including Facebook, Tesla, Visa, Microsoft, and Walmart.
The Vasylkovsky spouses have the most wristwatches - five for each of them, with a total value of more than UAH 7 million. In addition, Ihor Vasylkovskyi declared two pairs of cufflinks, four leather bags, three fur coats, and more than 20 pieces of jewelry.
Anatoliy Urbanskyi declared eight watches (five of his own and three belonging to his wife). His wife also owns at least nine pieces of jewelry, four fur coats and three handbags.
Mykola Skoryk and his wife own five watches. Yulia Didenko and her husband share four watches. Anton Kissé rounds out the top five Swiss watch lovers with three watches.
Tetiana Plachkova has only one watch, while two fur coats were declared. The MP owns three sets of jewelry, two handbags (Louis Vuitton and Hermes) and an Alexander Terekhov dress.
Artem Dmytruk is the only MP who declared three valuable icons.
Anatoliy Urbanskyi also stands out among other representatives of Odesa region. He declared 7 paintings.
Who is he - the owner of cryptocurrency worth almost 7 billion hryvnias?
Out of all 18 MPs from Odesa region, only one declared cryptocurrency. Anatolii Urbanskyi owns 4,256.3 bitcoins (equivalent to 6.5 billion hryvnias or 235 million US dollars as of the date of this writing). For comparison, this amount was requested by the United Nations for humanitarian aid to Haiti, one of the most expensive paintings in the world, "Card Players" by Paul Cezanne, was purchased for 250 million US dollars, and the same amount of money can be used to launch a Falcon 9 rocket four times.
The material was prepared as part of the work of the Center for Public Investigations.
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