Ostap Semerak: The Pesticide Business of a Political Loser from the Ministry of Ecology
Where did this "modest man," who, according to his financial disclosures, lived on one salary his entire life, suddenly come from? Current Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Ostap Semerak has been evading an honest answer to this question for several months now. While journalists were trying to uncover the origins of his luxury high-rise apartment and expensive foreign cars, Semerak engaged in dubious manipulations in the waste disposal sector. For several years, this topic has been a source of income for many heads of the Ministry of Ecology and the businessmen associated with them—and now, it may be boosting the current minister's net worth.
Ostap Semerak. A Scandalous Apartment in a Scandalous Building
Until the fall of 2016, Ostap Semerak was the most inconspicuous minister in the Groysman government . Even before that, he received virtually no media attention at all—even when he served as a cabinet minister in Yatsenyuk's first government from February to December 2014. Semerak was exposed by the detailed electronic income and property declarations for 2015 that all Ukrainian MPs and high-ranking officials were forced to submit. These declarations achieved their intended purpose of revealing the true extent of politicians' wealth. And once the shock of tens of millions of dollars and hryvnias declared in cash under the beds of Ukraine's richest people had subsided, attention turned to the "poor and needy," who had previously only declared their salaries.
Among them was Ostap Semerak, who, in addition to a 52-square-meter apartment, also declared a 354,7-square-meter mansion in an elite high-rise building, which he owns equally with his wife. In his declaration, Semerak literally listed these "halves": 177,35 square meters each, and also listed the "halves" of two parking spaces adjacent to the same apartment (8,45 and 8,70 square meters). Fortunately, the Semeraks don't jointly own cars, otherwise the minister would likely have also listed them as "half-shares" in the declaration. The head of the Ministry of Ecology owns a 2006 Jaguar S-Type and a 2011 Volkswagen Touareg (purchased for 993 hryvnias), while his wife drives a 2011 Toyota Camry (price unknown). In addition, Ostap Semerak received 1,766 million hryvnias in 2015 for "real estate alienation." He also had 190 hryvnias and $160,5.
It seemed like a perfectly reasonable declaration—and Semerak himself was convinced of it. However, meticulous journalists quickly uncovered several facts that instantly tarnished the glowing image of the "honest professional" from the "government of reformers." First, they established that the building at 36v Shchorsa Street (now Konovalets Street) is an elite high-rise with a rather scandalous past. It turned out that the land on which it stands was allocated by the Kyiv City Council in 2008 to the Kyiv Institute of Culture at the request of its rector, Mykhailo Poplavskyi, for the construction of a new student dormitory. However, no dormitory was even in the plans: the land was immediately sold for commercial development to Zhitlo-bud LLC, whose owner, Ivan Kurovsky, was a member of parliament for the BYuT faction and a close associate of then-mayor Leonid Chernovetsky ( read more about him in the article "Leonid Chernovetsky: How "Lenya Kosmos" Robbed Kyiv and Moved to Georgia "). Thanks to this "protection," this company successfully built projects even during the 2008-2009 crisis. Secondly, this building was originally designed as VIP apartments, so the apartments there are very expensive even by Kyiv standards: from 2011-2013, the same apartment there cost $800-850, and that's without finishing! Together with the cost of luxury plumbing, parquet ceilings, the services of designers and workers, and two parking spaces, the Semerak couple's new home cost approximately 900-950 thousand dollars.
Thirdly, if Ostap Semerak were a well-known oligarch, such a purchase would not have raised any eyebrows. But this "grey man" always declared a modest income, so journalists naturally wondered where he got the money for such an apartment—and for his cars, too. The publication "Nabladel" even sent him an official journalistic inquiry, to which Ostap Semerak never bothered to respond.
Instead, a month after submitting his request, Semerak decided to play the typical "fool"—as some Ukrainian politicians sometimes do when they lack the courage or the arguments to give a direct answer. On the "Rendezvous" program on Channel 5 (owned by Poroshenko), Semerak casually broached the subject of his apartment and, in a seemingly casual atmosphere, "explained" that he received the money to buy it after selling a plot in a gardening cooperative. He allegedly received the plot itself back in 2009 as a member of the Verkhovna Rada, instead of... an apartment.
The attempt to justify himself proved unconvincing, especially since the journalists from "Nabladel" had already completely destroyed the "sale of the plot" theory.
Firstly, plots in "garden cooperatives," even near Kyiv, weren't worth $800. Secondly, journalists established that the apartment was purchased by the Semerak couple between 2011 and 2012, while Ostap Mikhailovich sold his land plot (26 hundredths) in 2014, without declaring the income. Thirdly, and most oddly, the Semeraks filed a new title deed for the apartment in 2014. This meant they had purchased it only in 2014, yet Semerak had listed this apartment in his 2013 declaration. Fourthly, Ostap Semerak's 2013 declaration had mysteriously disappeared from the public registry. All of this provided grounds for an even closer look at the head of the Ministry of Ecology and a deeper dive into his past.
Ostap Semerak. Party clerk
Ostap Mykhailovych Semerak was born on June 27, 1972, in Lviv, to Mykhailo Mykhailovych Semerak, a teacher at the Lviv Firefighting School (now the rector of the Lviv State University of Life Safety), and his wife, Stefania Vasylivna Semerak, an economist. In 1989, Ostap enrolled in the Physics Department of Lviv State University, and by the fall of 1990, he had become interested in politics and participated in the so-called "Revolution on Granite." As part of a delegation of Lviv students, they traveled to Kyiv, where, according to him, they were initially received rather unfriendly, but later, "progressive Kyiv youth" flocked to the Maidan to support the protests. The movement captivated Ostap, but upon returning to Lviv, he did not join either Rukh or the radical nationalists—according to Skelet.Org— under the influence of his parents. However, in 1992, Ostap Semerak resurfaced in Kyiv: he enrolled in the political science program at the "revived" (after its closure in 1817) Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, while simultaneously studying at Lviv State University. Semerak also became a co-founder and deputy chairman of the academy's Student Brotherhood.
After defending his diploma in Lviv, he permanently moved to Kyiv, devoting himself to politics. However, Semerak failed to make it as a public politician: while his "brothers" in the "revolution on granite" became party leaders and members of parliament, Ostap found himself in the role of a shadowy and inconspicuous "party clerk." From 1994 to 96, Semerak coordinator of the "School of Young Politicians" of the Ukrainian Foundation for Reform Support, and then headed the Foundation for the Promotion of Political Culture. Both foundations were associated with the Renaissance Foundation (a branch of the Soros Foundation) and the American "Institutes of Democracy," being typical grant-hungry organizations. These foundations helped him find a new job: in 1997, Semerak entered the Verkhovna Rada – not as a deputy, but as head of the secretariat of the "PRP" faction, essentially coordinating the work of the deputies' assistants. Semerak held this position for quite a long time: in 2002, he headed the secretariat of the Our Ukraine faction (which included the PRP), and in 2005-2006, he again headed the secretariat of the PRP (which left OU and merged with the PORA party). His own attempts to become a member of parliament ended in failure: he never received more than 10% of the vote in single-member constituencies, and on the PRP party lists, he was given unwinnable spots. In 2006, Vira Ulyanchenko, head of the Kyiv Regional Administration, took pity on the quiet, efficient "boy" and hired him as her deputy ( read more about her in the article "Ulyanchenko – "Baba Vera": Komsomolskaya Pravda, Thief, and the President's "Mommy" ). Semerak held this position until November 2007. Given Ulyanchenko's mega-corrupt reputation, it's surprising that Semerak's name didn't appear in her schemes.
Ostap and Orisya
At this time, Semerak was developing his future strategic connections. In the Ulyanchenko administration, he became close to Yulia Pidkomorna, whom he would later lobby twice for Cabinet positions. And through his wife, Orisya (Arina), he met her business partner at Ost-Group LLC, Oleg Didenko (the future head of Gaz Ukrainy).
In 1998, Ostap Semerak, together with his old friend (also a "young politician") Sergei Yevtushenko, registered Ergo-Ivano-Frankivsk LLC, which owned several building materials stores. In 2007, the director of this company was Konstantin Magnovsky, who was involved in an interesting scandal.
In 2007-2008, Magnovsky received several loans totaling $680 from Raiffeisen Bank Aval. His guarantors were Gabriela Firm LLC (founded by Magnovsky, director L.V. Sorokina) and Ergo-Ivano-Frankivsk LLC—meaning, its de facto owners, Semerak and Yevtushenko. The exact purpose of the loan remains unclear, but it was never repaid. Perhaps it was lost during the 2008 crisis, or perhaps it was misappropriated. Interestingly, immediately after Magnovsky received the first tranche of this loan, on November 22, 2007, Ostap Semerak purchased a 2006 Jaguar S-type. Is this a coincidence? Subsequently, Raiffeisenbank Aval attempted three times (in 2009, 2012, and 2014) to collect the loan and interest from Magnovsky and his guarantors, or at least to sue the guarantors for some property, but to no avail: in 2013, Semerak bankrupted Ergo-Ivano-Frankivsk LLC, effectively leaving the bank high and dry.
That same Jaguar S-type
By that time, Ostap Semerak had already realized his youthful dream: in 2007, at the urging of Vira Ulyanchenko, he secured a spot on the BYuT list and, for the first time in 10 years, entered the Verkhovna Rada as a people's deputy, where he served for the next four and a half years as a member of the budget committee. Meanwhile, in 2010, his business partner, Sergei Yevtushenko, became the right-hand man of Vladislav Kaskiv, the head of the State Agency for National Projects Management – a notorious corrupt official and embezzler. It was Yevtushenko who oversaw the LNG terminal project, which ended in a massive billion-dollar scam!
Moreover, in March 2014, after Kaskiv's defection, Yevtushenko took his place, where he successfully "served" until the Agency's liquidation in 2015. Incidentally, Sergei Yevtushenko has a younger brother, Konstantin, who posed as a successful businessman (owner of the investment company Merit Investment Group), posing for photos on the TV show "Bachelors" and in Cosmopolitan Ukraine magazine. But as it turned out, his "capital" was merely his brother's money, which he diligently "sawed" through state funds in tandem with Kaskiv. And Konstantin's promotion resembled one of the Agency's scams, which concluded contracts with fictitious "major businessmen." Was Ostap Semerak, a member of the Verkhovna Rada's budget committee, somehow involved in this? It's certainly possible! It's slowly becoming clear how he could have found the money for such a luxurious apartment. Moreover, in 2011, Semerak purchased a Volkswagen Touareg crossover for 993 thousand hryvnias—wasn't that too expensive for a deputy whose annual salary was just over 70 thousand?
The scandalous Ministry of Ecology
In early 2012, Ostap Semerak launched into a flurry of foreign policy activity: he traveled to Moscow to participate in opposition rallies on Bolotnaya Square, met with Boris Nemtsov, his old acquaintance from the "democratic foundations," and invited Alexei Navalny, the new Russian opposition figure, to Kyiv. However, at the end of the year, Semerak suffered another political setback: his seat #76 on the Batkivshchyna ticket proved unwinnable in the parliamentary elections. Semerak went into hiding for a year and a half, avoiding public appearances and apparently busy decorating his enormous, luxurious apartment. He returned to politics immediately after the second Maidan: on February 27, Ostap Semerak was appointed cabinet minister in Arseniy Yatsenyuk's government. His first steps were lobbying for the candidacies of his acquaintances and business partners for government positions. Yulia Pidkomorna (Deputy Head of the Cabinet Minister's Service) and Sergei Yevtushenko (who took Kaskiv's place) were immediately appointed. He also helped Oleh Korban become Deputy Head of the Kyiv Regional Administration.
Semerak's political (or business) clout grew significantly: in the 2014 snap parliamentary elections, he was elected as candidate #33 on the People's Front list and immediately defected to the Verkhovna Rada, taking Yulia Pidkomorna (who served as a deputy's assistant) with him. But in May 2015, he appointed her as head of the Communications and Organizational Work Department at the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine. This gave Pidkomorna's career a major boost: at the end of 2016, she was appointed Secretary of State at the Ministry of Energy. And, according to Skelet.Org , she is not the only person close to Semerak in this department: since 2014, his wife's business partner, Oleh Didenko, headed the company Gaz Ukrainy, and now he has taken over the company's successor, Gas Distribution Systems of Ukraine LLC.
Ostap Semerak
Ostap Semerak himself took over the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources on April 14, 2016. At first glance, it doesn't seem like a lucrative position, but only at first glance! The new head of the department quickly mastered three areas of responsibility, sparking a flurry of public outrage and even accusations of corruption against Semerak—a claim he would have become "famous" even without this scandal involving a luxury apartment and an expensive car fleet.
The first area of focus was the disposal of hazardous chemicals. It would seem, what could you steal – a barrel of used pesticides? No, you can not steal, but "appropriate" them – and not just pesticides, but the budget funds allocated for their disposal! Over the past five years, several ecology ministers have profited and quickly found themselves in trouble, but the main figure in the case was the same savvy businessman. Back in 2012, then-Minister of Ecology Mykola Zlochevsky ( read more about him in the article Why Does the Devil Wear Prada, and Zlochevsky Wear Zlocci? ) and Israeli-passport holder Ilya Marchevsky (owner of the Israeli firm SI Group Consort Ltd.) decided to profit from the environmental disaster in the city of Kalush, for which 330 million hryvnias were allocated from the budget. They devised an elaborate scheme in which ordinary construction waste, along with contaminated soil, was transported for recycling (to Britain). Meanwhile, through collusion between Marchevsky and the minister, all potential competitors of SI Group Consort Ltd., who had the licenses and capabilities to carry out this work, were eliminated from the market. Following a series of publications (covered by Tatyana Chornovol), Zlochevsky was dismissed from his position, and Marchevsky was arrested and brought to trial.
Euromaidan freed and acquitted Marchevsky, who continued to perpetrate his old scheme with the new Minister of Ecology, Ihor Shevchenko. Their victims included the Oil Regeneration Service Center LLC, which was removed from the tender, and SI Group Consort Ltd. was already preparing to export wasteland soil mixed with fuel oil. Then, Eco-Nova, the only company in Ukraine equipped for the clean disposal of pesticides, almost became their victim. However, during the ensuing standoff between Shevchenko and Yatsenyuk, he was dismissed, and since July 2015, the ministry has been headed by his deputy, Serhiy Kurykin, who was also dismissed amid scandal in February 2016 on charges of fraudulent tenders involving Kyoto Protocol funds. As we can see, the Ministry of Ecology is as scandalously corrupt as any other agency! And so, Ostap Semerak, who took over the department in April 21016, already conducted unscheduled inspections of a number of companies that summer—and Eco-Nova once again found itself in the crossfire! Which means the familiar silhouette of Marchevsky is already looming somewhere near Semerak!
Another interesting fact: Evdokia Vasilyevna Yarovaya, head of the Ministry of Natural Resources' Department of Economics and Finance, was named as one of the figures involved in these dealings. Now, having outlived four ministers, she continues to serve productively under Ostap Semerak.
But the Ministry of Ecology doesn't rely solely on pesticides! It turns out that issuing licenses for the collection, processing, and disposal of ordinary household waste is also a lucrative business! Especially when licenses are issued to companies that exist only on paper, as happened in the Odessa region. Where licensed companies, LLC "NPK Ukrecoprom" (EDRPOU 39624900) and LLC "UTILVTORPROM" (EDRPOU 39447017), suddenly turned out to be subsidiaries of the same offshore company, "ESTRO LTD" (103 Sham Tong Plaza, Victoria, Seychelles), located at the same address – and had no waste processing equipment! Essentially, that address is some abandoned industrial site. So how did they get those licenses? You should ask the head of the Ministry of Ecology! Is it any wonder that "garbage apocalypses" like the one in Lviv are happening in Ukraine? But Ostap Semerak responds with silence even to direct accusations from journalists and businessmen.
The second area of Ostap Semerak's "environmental business" being developed is lobbying for the lifting of the moratorium on roundwood exports. As early as the summer of 2016, Semerak advocated for strict measures against the unauthorized felling of trees for firewood by farmers and artisans, and by November, he supported the industrial export of timber to Europe. Sources reported that the minister's interests are driven not only by the licenses he will issue to large logging companies, but also by the promised "gratitude" from European buyers.
Geology has emerged as a third promising area, as Semerak's ministry's full name is the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources! And when we talk about natural resources, we immediately think of his people, who have been placed in high positions in the Ministry of Energy and the gas sector. Meanwhile, Semerak is accused of completely destroying geological services: he promised to reform them and cut costs by 10%, but in fact, he cut them by 32% and simply fired most of the specialists. This can be seen in the example of the state-owned enterprise Kirovgeologiya, where its new boss, Vitaly Nelga, effectively bankrupted the company, and now a developer is planning to buy the land it occupied to build a shopping mall there. Meanwhile, Semerak's appointee, Nelga, had already bankrupted Poltavaneftegasgeologiya! According to the dismissed specialists, another six months of such reforms will leave Ukraine with no one left to explore the subsurface, let alone even maintain the information the state already has about underground resources. It's possible that this trend is part of some larger, dark plan.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
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