Road repair in Chernivtsi for over UAH 200 million: suspicion of embezzlement of budget funds for the contractor and engineer

Representatives of the Chernivtsi District Prosecutor’s Office have charged one of the heads of a contracting company and a technical supervision engineer in a case related to the possible embezzlement of state funds during the overhaul of the road.

The repair was carried out on Khotynska Street, for which more than 200 million hryvnias were spent. This information was announced by the Prosecutor General’s Office.

According to the investigation, in 2020, the Chernivtsi City Council concluded an agreement with a contractor to carry out a major overhaul of the street. The total cost of this project exceeded 200 million hryvnias.

The work was completed in 2023, but soon significant defects began to appear on certain sections of the road, which caused indignation among residents.

During the pre-trial investigation, law enforcement officers discovered that during the laying of the top layer of asphalt concrete mixture, the subordinate did not use more than 238 tons of material provided for by the project. This is approximately equal to the volume of ten large trucks of asphalt.

The investigation showed that the characteristics of the road surface, in particular density and humidity, do not comply with the standards and approved project documentation.

Despite this, the contractor and engineer provided false information in the certificates of work performed, which allowed them to receive full payment.

According to investigators, as a result, the cost of the work performed could have been overstated by almost 850 thousand hryvnias, which caused losses to the local budget.

The pre-trial investigation is being conducted by the Chernivtsi District Police Department with the support of the Department of Strategic Investigations of the Chernivtsi Region.

According to Article 62 of the Constitution of Ukraine, a person is presumed innocent until his guilt is proven and confirmed by a court verdict.

In another case, a conflict arose in a courtyard on the Minsky massif between the developer and residents due to the intention to build a transit road at the site of a fire escape. Residents of houses No. 11, 11A and 11B on Petra Pancha Street expressed their protest and appealed to the police with a request to verify the legality of these works.

According to local residents, on Sunday they held a community meeting, where they unanimously opposed the construction of a road next to residential buildings.