Road repairs, hospitals and playgrounds: where budget funds were lost in Bukovina

In Bukovina, serious abuses were revealed among officials of local self-government bodies, municipal enterprises, and state institutions. As a result of the investigations, the regional prosecutor’s office reported suspicions against ten individuals for offenses related to the embezzlement of budget funds, official forgery, and abuse of authority.

According to experts, the total damage is about 10 million hryvnias. Among those detained are village heads, hospital directors, representatives of the infrastructure and capital construction departments, as well as heads of municipal enterprises.

In particular, the following cases became the subject of investigation:

The village head of the Brusnytsia community, in the performance of his official duties, appropriated land plots that did not belong to the community, and also seized the property of a mobile operator, transferring it to a third party.

The management and specialists of the Khotyn hospital purchased air conditioners at inflated prices, resulting in financial losses for the budget.
The head of the Klishkovets village council admitted to spending over 975,000 hryvnias on the construction of a sports ground, the work on which was not completed.
The head of the capital construction department of the Chernivtsi City Council approved an inflated cost for repairing an inter-building driveway, resulting in a budget loss of over 694,000 hryvnias.
The head of the Kadubovets village council inflated the cost of repairing a school cafeteria, resulting in losses exceeding 1 million hryvnias.
The management of the Chernivtsi Vodokanal enterprise purchased a car for the repair crews at an exorbitant price, resulting in losses of over 1.2 million hryvnias.
The former head of the regional department of the State Geocadastre illegally transferred over 1.4 hectares of land to private ownership, resulting in losses to the state of over 2 million hryvnias.
Analysts also suspect the former head of the infrastructure department of the Chernivtsi Regional State Administration, who is now the director of another state institution. He is suspected of embezzling approximately 2.9 million hryvnias when purchasing works to mitigate the consequences of a natural disaster on roads, where the work was partially completed at inflated prices.
The investigation is currently ongoing under the procedural supervision of the Chernivtsi Regional Prosecutor’s Office, in cooperation with the police, the State Border Guard, the State Bureau of Investigation, the Security Service of Ukraine, and the National Police.

The prosecutor’s office is intensifying efforts to compensate for the losses incurred by the state.

Additionally, searches were previously conducted in several medical institutions due to the provision of fictitious medical services, which may have resulted in total losses amounting to millions of hryvnias.