The management of the Kyivreklama municipal enterprise, attempting to cover up the absence of a billboard advertising Oleksandr Puzanov in their database, promised to demolish it. Furthermore, to cover their tracks, they hastily taped the permit number to the billboard on a piece of paper. However, it was later discovered that since 2013, the utility had been receiving less than half the required payment for the billboard, and nothing could be recovered.
As KV reported last week, Kyivreklama's management was once again caught stumbling over its official advertising media database, with illegal advertising being removed only selectively. Furthermore, the management of this public utility was once again reminded of the need to comply with the Law and the Procedure approved by the Kyiv City Council—marking all legal advertising structures.
Because of the negligent attitude of Kyivreklama's management towards its work, the capital's treasury is, in fact, losing millions.
As a reminder, the issue at hand concerned an unregistered billboard advertising the Opposition Bloc on Borshahivska Street (opposite the Central Civil Registry Office), which, for some reason, was not listed on the KyivReklama public database map or in the Kyiv urban development cadastre.
This story received a continuation recently.
"The new director of the municipal enterprise, Natalia Goncharova, responded to the message promptly, and that same day it was discovered that the sign supposedly existed in the database, but was simply marked in a slightly different location on the map," Oleksandr Pliva, a member of the Anti-Corruption Council under the Mayor of Kyiv, reported on the Facebook page of the Council.
According to him, he was also shown an inspection report for this structure, allegedly prepared the day before. They allegedly discovered illegal advertising and were now removing it. It was then discovered that the billboard in question had one more advertising surface than specified in the permit received by Argent LLC in March 2013.
"But that's not all—the so-called tariff zone in the permit was also incorrectly specified. As a result, all these years, the utility company has been receiving less than half of what it should have been receiving for the temporary use of the advertising structure. There's no way to recover all the lost funds the utility company has received over the past two and a half years, as the penalty under Article 152 of the Code of Administrative Offenses can only be a one-time fine of between 850 and 1700 hryvnias, which roughly corresponds to the monthly "savings" of the swindlers over this entire period," noted Oleksandr Pliva.
Naturally, the city budget has once again been left high and dry in this situation. Suing a company (OOO Argent), which has no direct relationship with the city, is futile. And suing its own municipal enterprise, which "overlooked" the use of municipal property for illegal enrichment, would seem rather odd.
This incident once again confirms the obvious: the city itself should receive fees for the temporary use of its own outdoor advertising spaces. Moreover, this is required by law. It also requires that all outdoor advertising be labeled, something Natalya Goncharova stubbornly refuses to do.
The most interesting thing is that, in an attempt to avoid further publicity regarding the incident, the management of Kyivreklama hastened to "mark" the billboard on Borshahivska Street.
"Considering the inspector's assertion that the advertising medium in question did indeed have the required markings, we had to visit the site again. And indeed, it turned out that a piece of paper with a permit number, freshly taped with transparent tape, had appeared on the pole," noted Alexander Pliva.
Question: Where are the mayor and the prosecutor's office looking?
Alexander Krasnogorodsky, KyivVlast
Subscribe to our channels in Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, VC — Only new faces from the section CRYPT!