The fight against kickbacks and embezzlement schemes, recently loudly proclaimed by Moscow Mayor Vitali Klitschko, appears to have begun. The mayor's team, a boxer, has decided to seize all the capital's lucrative morsels, knocking out all the old heads of municipal companies and installing their own people in their place. Moscow prosecutors have graciously agreed to lend a hand in this difficult task for Vitaliy Vladimirovich.
The capital's markets are once again under the watchful eye of the authorities
"Prokurorskaya Pravda" previously reported on the conflict that erupted around the management of Kyiv's Vladimirsky Market. As a result, the market's former director, Elena Yaroshevich, was fired for alleged urban planning violations during the development of retail facilities. Her replacement was appointed by Yuriy Melnyk, a longtime employee of businessman Dmytro Firtash. However, as it turns out, the capital's "market affairs" are not limited to the Vladimirsky Market. A leadership change at the Zhitny Market municipal enterprise is also imminent.
For example, the Kyiv Podilskyi District Prosecutor's Office recently released information that market director Ihor Tsekhanskyi was caught accepting a bribe of 42 hryvnias for renting premises to an unspecified entrepreneur. The crime was uncovered during a joint operation by prosecutors and police, and the case has already been referred to court. Tsekhanskyi himself was allegedly intoxicated in his office at the time of his arrest.
The scheme is very similar to the one once orchestrated by the Kyiv City State Administration against Olena Yaroshevich. The prosecutor's office here plays the role not of guardians of the law and defenders of state interests, but rather of enforcers, ready at the command of "sic 'em" to eliminate those undesirable to the current Kyiv authorities. It's not hard to guess that management of this market will likely soon be entrusted to someone close to high-ranking Kyiv City State Administration officials or their business partners.
Klitschko's people are "concessioning" the retail facilities
There's more to come—a gripping bestseller called "Repartition by Lawlessness" awaits all Kyiv residents. Interestingly, last week, the position of director of the Kyiv City State Administration's Department of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development was taken over by Anatoliy Kinakh's son-in-law (the current authorities assure us that nepotism does not and cannot exist here!), Maksym Kuzmenko.
The new director of the relevant department has already promised to improve the city's investment climate. He plans to begin by streamlining trade, including at communal markets. Kuzmenko will oversee the reorganization of the Vladimirsky Market, Zhitny Market, and, for now, Bessarabsky Market, which remains unaffected by the upheavals.
Interestingly, in order to justify the need for the upcoming changes to the structure of municipal property, officials have been instructed to prepare reports confirming the ineffective performance of enterprises.
After the tenders, the bazaar properties will be transferred to concession, and the municipal enterprises under whose guise the bazaars currently operate will be liquidated! This scheme is as simple as pie: the bazaars will be handed over to "insiders" through private tenders, who will gain control over the enormous financial flows that flow into the capital's bazaars.
Among these people is Vasyl Severinenko, a Kyiv City Council member from the UDAR party and chairman of the board of the Polyus company, which founded the Fermer wholesale fruit and vegetable market in Troyeshchyna. Anatoliy Karpenko, co-owner of the Fermer company and head of the Kyiv City Council's standing committee on trade, entrepreneurship, and regulatory policy, will also participate in the competition. As we can see, all of these individuals are close to Mayor Klitschko.
Parking lots will also be "sawed up"; the prosecutor's office is involved in the case
However, markets aren't the only issue the mayor's heavyweight team is trying to exploit in order to reap a hefty profit. The "fighters for justice" are also targeting such lucrative spots as the capital's parking lots. For example, the Kyiv City Hall press service released a statement from Igor Astakhov, deputy director of the Kyivtransparkservice municipal enterprise, regarding the operation of the capital's parking lots.
According to him, according to an audit (they even managed to whip it up!), there are currently over 850 overnight parking lots operating in Kyiv. However, only 25% of them have the necessary documents to provide these services. Furthermore, the deputy director of a specialized company seemed to have an epiphany, stating that "the actual number of parking spaces in the lots does not correspond to the documented number—the number from which taxes are paid to the city budget."
Astakhov's department calculated that, according to preliminary estimates, the city budget currently loses approximately 100 million hryvnias annually from parking lots. Therefore, the director promised to work with the prosecutor's office and public organizations to combat the "gray" schemes of entrepreneurs.
In other words, the city authorities have decided to take advantage of the scam to also grab parking spaces, which have been in dire need in Kyiv for years now. It's no coincidence that the deputy director of the municipal company's words were picked up by the mayor's office press service. Meanwhile, the fact that the prosecutor's office will be involved in this "process" is taken for granted.
Hailing from Monaco: Kyivpastrans has landed its man
Another municipal company, Kyivpastrans, has recently found itself at the center of a scandal. Last month, the Kyiv prosecutor's office announced that it had opened a criminal investigation into alleged abuses by several Kyiv City State Administration and Kyivpastrans officials.
Specifically, investigators established that, based on a decision by the Kyiv City State Administration, officials from the Kyiv City Council's Department of Economy and Investments entered into an investment agreement transferring a 9,6-hectare plot of land at 20 Polyarna Street to a private enterprise for the construction of a shopping mall. During the prosecutor's investigation, it was established that the transfer of this land plot occurred in violation of land legislation, without the relevant decision of the Kyiv City Council. Furthermore, it was established that the plot houses the Kyivpastrans motor pool, which serves as a base for the deployment of a preliminary assembly point and dispatch point for mobilization resources in the Obolonskyi district. Consequently, according to the prosecutor's office, military personnel and equipment intended for support of the army and dispatch to the ATO zone were effectively deprived of a collection point.
It's noteworthy that earlier this month, following the completion of the prosecutor's office's investigation of the company, 40-year-old businessman Serhiy Meisel was appointed head of Kyivpasstrans. According to his social media page, he hails from the Principality of Monaco, which, however, did not hinder his work as head of the Department of Transport and Information Technology for the Desnyansky District Administration of Kyiv.
Anyone in the know will understand that the Kyivpastrans case also played out a well-established strategy by the new capital's authorities: to install their own people, they need to deploy the law enforcement apparatus, which will remove unnecessary people from the road. As the saying goes, where there's a man, there's a case.
Thus, behind Mayor Klitschko's fine (if sometimes tongue-in-cheek) words about how from now on all Kyiv community property will be used exclusively for the benefit of Kyiv residents lies a banal desire to redistribute property so that it will work specifically for the benefit of those in power. The fact that the prosecutor's office will be involved in such a "fix-it" is the harsh reality of our corrupt country. Prosecutors, after all, are people who want to eat. They also want to fly to expensive resorts, drive prestigious VIP cars, and own "modest" mansions near Kyiv. In short, with such desires, you can't live on a prosecutor's salary alone. The concepts of "honor" and "law" are increasingly interpreted very differently by prosecutors and ordinary Ukrainians.
Based on this, Prosecutor's Truth has a number of questions for the leadership of the Prosecutor General's Office:
— Does the agency ever intend to pay attention to the redistribution of capital property by Mayor Klitschko's team?
— What does the Prosecutor General's Office think about the Kyiv City Hall's involvement in the Kyiv Prosecutor's Office's economic affairs? Or is it not just watching, but actively participating?
— Will an objective investigation be conducted into corruption at municipal enterprises in the capital and among officials of the Kyiv City State Administration?
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