Tymofiy Golban, Head of the Poltava Regional State Administration's Construction Department: TT has its share of misfires.
Meet Timofey Timofeyevich Golban, known privately as "TT." The comparison to the famous Soviet pistol is quite apt—a reliable and dependable tool in someone's hands. This man is one of the key officials responsible for distributing cash flows—in 2017, his department handled 334 million hryvnias, or almost 15% of all Poltava Oblast expenditures.
Skelet.Org has already written about the specifics of the Poltava Regional State Administration's Health Department's tender policy . Now we turn our attention to the administration's most important department—construction.
The head of the Department of Construction, Urban Development and Housing and Public Utilities of the Poltava Regional State Administration is Timofey Timofeevich Golban, or as he is known in narrow circles, "TT".
He's a very progressive young man, actively promoting himself on Facebook and deeply versed in cryptocurrencies. He's been working as a foreman for a while now and is actively eyeing a seat on the regional council, and you can be sure he'll soon be there. In 2015, Golban ran for regional council, but his senior colleagues apparently decided to keep this outstanding figure focused on construction projects.
Tymofiy Golban's career has been exemplary – from a controller-auditor to the head of a department at the State Financial Inspectorate in Poltava Oblast. From there, he rocketed through the ranks of deputy head of the Consumer Protection Inspectorate in Poltava Oblast to his current position as head of the Construction Department, all in just one year.
Timofey Golban. Family Ties
Timofey Golban's wife, Elena Anatolyevna Riznichenko, works in Golban's former position as head of the Consumer Protection Department of the State Service for Consumer Protection in Poltava Oblast. His sister, Ekaterina Golban, also holds the same position as head of the legal support department.
Apparently, her independent legal career didn't work out. Moreover, she was caught up in a fraud scandal when, according to media reports, she took $5,5 for services and never repaid them, despite never providing any services. One might say she failed to perform her services properly and, ironically, now works in the field of defending citizens against similar "service providers."
Timofey Golban's mother-in-law, Svetlana Borisovna Reznicenko, is the direct owner of Inforos Group LLC and is indirectly associated with Inkommash LLC, as well as the public organization "Center for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime of the Poltava Region."
Timofey Golban: Crypto Official
Timofey Golban's declarations are of particular interest. At age 34 (as of 2015), he already received a monthly disability pension in addition to his salary. He owns a 20,000 square meter plot of land. In 2016, his mother-in-law gifted the family an 86 square meter apartment.
The family has two cars: a 2013 Mitsubishi ASX, personal property, and a 2016 BMW X1, registered to the wife.
And most importantly, cryptocurrencies. Typically, from the layman's perspective, officials, while thieving, are extremely primitive and conservative. But when anti-corruption legislation begins to tighten, miracles of ingenuity immediately appear. Timofey Golban keeps up with the times, and his investment portfolio includes not only the well-worn Bitcoin but also some extremely exotic cryptocurrencies:
- Bitcoin -55,998 (on wife)
- Bitcoin – 55,998 (personal)
- Ripple - 41,616 (personal)
- Ethereum – 65,367 (personal)
- Litecoin – 22,027 (personal)
- Monero – 57,932 (personal)
- Digibyte – 13,005 (personal)
Journalists from the online publication "Poltavshchyna" took the trouble to calculate the value of these assets at the February 2018 exchange rate. The result was approximately 8,6 million hryvnias.
Incidentally, Golban's colleague, a former SBU employee and now head of a new municipal road maintenance company in the Poltava region, Oleksiy Igorevich Basan, is also a cryptocurrency enthusiast. He holds 141130 UAH worth of Bitcoin, 55,400 UAH worth of Ethereum, 45400 UAH worth of Zcash, and 260,000 UAH worth of Neo. This isn't the Poltava State Administration, it's just a cryptocurrency exchange!
But not everything is as it seems in Tymofiy Golban's declarations. His "forgetfulness" was previously corrected by experts from the All-Ukrainian Movement Against Political Corruption "Under Control." They pointed out that Tymofiy Golban failed to file a notification of significant changes in his financial situation with the National Anti-Corruption Committee (NAPC), failing to report the purchase of a 2013 Mitsubishi ASX, valued at over 200,000 hryvnias. The story was never followed up.
The Great Swindler
Now, about the financial and business affairs of the head of the Poltava Regional State Administration's Construction Department. Here are a few excerpts from open sources.
At the end of 2017, the Anti-Corruption Action Center, a non-governmental organization, reported violations in a UAH 37 million tender between long-standing competitors, Vi.I.P. Construction Company LLC and Budgarant Plus LLC. The tender documents contained identical errors (written by the same hand). The documents concerned the reconstruction of the Poltava Philharmonic. Both companies held accounts at the same bank, Diamantobank, and the bank guarantees were very similar.
In 2014, the Poltava Regional Council of Entrepreneurs accused Tymofiy Golban of bribery and collusion with Ministry of Internal Affairs officials. Entrepreneurs accused Golban of improperly imposing fines on those who refused to pay him tribute. Market traders in the regional center filed a collective appeal to the Poltava Regional Administration complaining about Golban's demands for money to issue permits for "trading and the destruction of businesses to order."
The Accounting Chamber of Ukraine against Golban
The Accounting Chamber of Ukraine also had complaints about Golban's business activities. Here's a quote from the Accounting Chamber's letter to the head of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Poltava Oblast (July 12, 2016, No. 18-1349):
The audit revealed numerous violations of the law by the Poltava Regional State Administration's Capital Construction Department (Head T.T. Golban) and the Myrgorod City Council's Capital Construction Department (Head M.V. Murov) while performing their functions as budget funds manager and contractor for work on the relevant construction projects.
Thus, at the construction site of the “Anti-Tuberculosis Dispensary” by the contractor OOO “Promsnab i K” (director Petrik Yu.A.) in December 2015, despite the fact of work being completed, the latter were accepted and paid in full at the expense of the state regional development fund in the amount of 11,7 million UAH.
In violation of the requirements of paragraph 1 of Article 853 and Article 877 of the Civil Code of Ukraine, paragraph 31 of the General Conditions for the Conclusion and Performance of Contracts for Capital Construction, Golban's administration also accepted and paid for construction work at the specified facility for a total of UAH 8,8 million, the implementation of which was not provided for in the design and estimate documentation.
In addition, Promsnab i K LLC included certain materials and equipment at prices that exceed the actual market prices for the corresponding goods by 2 to 5,3 times in the KB-2v acts of the tuberculosis dispensary.
At the site "Reconstruction of Block No. 1 of the Gorbanevskaya Geriatric Boarding House for War and Labor Veterans," the contractor, Budgazconsulting LLC, accepted and paid for extruded polystyrene boards and thermal insulation boards at prices significantly higher than market prices, as a result of which the cost of the reconstruction increased by 422,3 thousand hryvnia.
Here are some quotes from the Report on the results of the audit of the effectiveness of the use in 2015 of state budget funds allocated to local budgets for the construction, reconstruction, and major repairs of infrastructure facilities in individual territories:
"Major repairs to improve energy efficiency of the building of the outpatient department for adults of the municipal Lubny central city hospital, located at 18-A L. Tolstoho Street, in the city of Lubny": the customer of the works, the Department of Capital Construction of Poltava Regional State Administration (Head T.T. Golban), after providing an advance payment of UAH 1,6 million from the development subvention to the contractor, Rayagrobud LLC, and receiving from it a certificate of completion of work form KB-2v for December 2015 in the amount of UAH 2347,6 thousand (under the terms of the agreement, it is a report on the use of funds received), made their payment in full, excluding the previously transferred advance, which has not yet been returned by the contractor. The records of the Department of Capital Construction of Poltava Regional State Administration as of 01.01.2016 show accounts receivable in the specified amount of the advance.
An inspection of the completed work on the "Major Roof Repairs of Lubny Specialized School for Grades I-III No. 6 at 36 Monastyrska Street in Lubny" (client: Department of Capital Construction of the Poltava Regional State Administration, Head: T.T. Golban) revealed substandard work by Budgazconsulting LLC on installing roofing corrugated sheets, which the client accepted without comment. As a result, the roof is leaking in several places, causing damage to the building's ceiling and finishes. At the time of the audit, the contractor had not yet completed any claims or litigation to rectify the defect. Therefore, the socioeconomic impact of the UAH 1037,2 development subsidy allocated to the major repairs was not achieved, indicating that these funds were being used ineffectively.
Who does Golban work with?
We have already met some of Timofey Golban's contractors.
The table below shows the largest contractor firms that received budget funding from the Department of Construction from 2015 to May 2018 (more than 10 million UAH).
Tymofiy Golban, Head of the Poltava Regional State Administration's Construction Department: TT has its share of misfires.
At the end of June 2018, the Construction Department signed contracts with Rembudgarant LLC and Mark Stroy LLC for renovation and construction work on the children's camp, totaling UAH 120,5 million. These companies are the Department's regular contractors. Although Rembudgarant did not make the final cut, it nevertheless completed work totaling UAH 8,6 million.
The state registry of court decisions also contains materials on criminal case No. 12016170000000707. The pre-trial investigation established that officials of the Construction Department, acting in collusion with officials of Avalon Budinvest LLC, abused their authority to provide an improper benefit to this legal entity. Specifically, they knowingly submitted false statements regarding the actual performance of work during the reconstruction of a sewer collector in Poltava. In fact, the work was not completed, and, moreover, "grave consequences" were inflicted.
Timofey Golban's actions are logical and consistent, fully consistent with the work style of his superior, Andriy Pesotsky . Looking at the situation from the outside, we now have officials in the Poltava region holding senior administrative positions who, in one way or another, figure in criminal investigation documents. These documents are being kept for the time being, keeping the "strong business executives" on a tight leash.
Petro Galushka, for Skelet.Org
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