Audit of the Ministry of Youth and Sports: Accounting Chamber reveals violations worth billions

16 December 2025 07:59

The Accounting Chamber of Ukraine has approved the Report on the results of the financial audit of the Ministry of Youth and Sports for 2024. The decision was made at a meeting on December 9. The audit covered not only the Ministry’s office but also subordinate institutions that are part of the consolidation group. This was reported by "Komersant Ukrainian" with reference to the Accounting Chamber.

The member of the Accounting Chamber Yelyzaveta Pushko-Tsybulyak was responsible for the control measure.

What the auditors checked

The consolidation group of the Ministry of Youth and Sports includes:

the central office of the Ministry;
17 state institutions under its management.

The auditors analyzed four key components in detail:

the apparatus of the Ministry of Youth and Sports;
UkrSportSupply Department;
Center “Invasport”;
Center “Sport for All”.

The total expenditures of these institutions amounted to 90% of the Ministry’s total budget, or about UAH 5 billion.

General conclusion of the audit

The Accounting Chamber has concluded that the consolidated financial and consolidated budget statements of the Ministry of Youth and Sports generally accurately reflect the financial position of the Ministry, except for a number of significant exceptions.

These exceptions became the key subject of the audit analysis.

The main problem: understatement of assets by UAH 3.68 billion

The audit found that the assets and liabilities of the balance sheet were understated by at least UAH 3.68 billion. The reason for this is the lack of information in the financial statements about long-term financial investments in eight companies under the management of the Ministry of Youth and Sports.

Accordingly, the Ministry’s equity in these companies was not reflected.

Why this happened

The auditors identified the primary reason as the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine’s failure to properly fulfill its accounting responsibilities. In particular, this includes

shortcomings in the implementation of national standards;
problems with the adoption of financial statements of key spending units;
insufficient explanatory work.

Violation of the consolidation procedure

Separately, the Accounting Chamber recorded that the Ministry of Youth and Sports included the expenses of 19 institutions that are not under its management in violation of the consolidation procedure.

The total amount of such expenses is UAH 128 million.

Why some transactions were not included in the financial statements

The auditors noted that the transactions of transferring funds to recipients under the allocations of open allocations were not reflected in the Ministry’s accounting due to the lack of legal grounds.

At the same time, these transactions:

are not reflected in the financial statements;
are reflected in the consolidated budget statements.

This creates misinterpretations for users of financial documents.

Other violations identified

The audit also revealed the following:

no separate accounting for state-owned property worth UAH 15.9 million located in the temporarily occupied territories or in the combat zone;
the useful life of intangible assets worth UAH 37.1 million was not determined, and no amortization was charged;
lack of a unified accounting policy for the entire consolidation group;
overstatement of current receivables by UAH 6.8 million;
misclassification of assets by UAH 6.6 million;
failure to disclose some of the mandatory information in the notes to the financial statements.

What the Ministry of Youth and Sports corrected during the audit

During the audit, the Ministry eliminated errors worth UAH 12.3 million, in particular

adjusted the initial value of intangible assets;
corrected the wrong classification of assets.

What recommendations did the Accounting Chamber make?

The Ministry of Finance of Ukraine is recommended to:

amend the form No. 5-ds “Notes to the Annual Financial Statements”;
to adapt the E-Reporting system for full disclosure of mandatory information;
to regulate the issue of reflecting allocations to non-governmental organizations and managers outside the sphere of management.

The Ministry of Youth and Sports is recommended to:

develop and approve a unified accounting policy;
unify the approach to accounting for expenses and assets;
determine the procedure for recording financial investments;
establish unified rules for amortization of intangible assets.

Ministry’s response

The Minister of Youth and Sports Matviy Bidnyi thanked the Accounting Chamber for the audit and said that the Ministry has already started improving its accounting policy and is cooperating with the Ministry of Finance.

The report will be submitted: