Fake renovation: UAH 8.5 million stolen from repairs that never happened in Borodyanka
3 July 2024 16:47
The State Audit Service of Ukraine has found a serious violation in the process of restoring housing damaged by Russian shelling in Borodyanka, Kyiv region. According to the auditors, a private contractor misappropriated almost UAH 8.5 million of budget funds, the "Komersant Ukrainian"
According to the Northern Office of the State Audit Service, the Borodyanka Village Council allocated funds to a limited liability company to dismantle an emergency apartment building. However, the contractor submitted fake certificates of completion for works that had not actually been carried out.
As a result of this scheme, UAH 8,486,642 was unlawfully paid from the local budget. The audit materials will be handed over to law enforcement agencies for compensation and prosecution.
War and reconstruction
As of May 2023, the KSE Institute had calculated $54 billion in losses to Ukraine’s housing stock. Of this, $46 billion was caused by the destruction of apartment buildings. In total, there are more than 18,000 such buildings. Also, 144,000 private houses were damaged. The total area of damaged or destroyed facilities is 87 million square metres. This is 8.6% of the total housing stock of Ukraine. In total, Russia has caused $153 billion in damage to Ukraine’s infrastructure.
As reported by Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, as of April 2023, 2.5 million Ukrainians had their homes damaged by the Russian invasion. There are 170,000 registered people whose homes have been completely destroyed. 200,000 Ukrainians are currently living in places of compact settlement, and 5,000 of them are living in modular towns.
The state programme of compensation for destroyed housing applies to owners of housing destroyed as a result of hostilities after 24 February 2022. The state compensates these people for the purchase of new or repair of old housing. However, the government has recently set a maximum area of destroyed housing for which compensation will be paid.
