Millions of hryvnias are spent on dubious consultants during construction – Head of the State Audit Service
18 November 2024 09:30
Despite reforms in Ukraine’s construction industry, hundreds of millions of hryvnias, including budget funds, continue to be spent on dubious consulting services. The system of architectural and construction control remains excessively closed, which creates favorable conditions for corruption and non-transparent distribution of funds. This is stated in the column of the Head of the State Audit Service Alla Basalaeva, according to "Komersant Ukrainian".
The system allows for abuse
Alla Basalaeva emphasizes that one of the main problems is the certification of experts who carry out technical, author’s supervision and examination of design and estimate documentation. After the 2017 reform, these functions were transferred to private organizations. The so-called “certified specialists” are authorized to provide services if they formally meet the requirements of the Ministry of Infrastructure. However, the main problem is the lack of accountability for their actions.
Private expert organizations only confirm that the documentation complies with technical standards, but their conclusions often do not stand up to scrutiny. According to Basalaeva, it is at the stage of project approval that a “time bomb” is laid. Errors in the documentation, poor quality expertise, and incorrect calculations later lead to significant construction cost increases and abuse.
It is striking that anyone with a specialized education and three years of work experience can qualify as a technical supervision expert. Training and certification cost just over 21 thousand hryvnias. Thus, people without proper training and experience can influence the distribution of budget funds.
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The problem with construction costs
Basalaeva emphasizes that the cost of support services during the construction of infrastructure facilities sometimes exceeds 6% of the total cost. For example, in a 3.8 billion hryvnia project, the costs amounted to more than 160 million hryvnias, including
- scientific and technical support – UAH 12 million
- maintenance of the customer’s service – UAH 26 million
- technical supervision – UAH 38 million;
- services of a consulting engineer – UAH 56.5 million;
- preparation of design and estimate documentation – UAH 23 million;
- examination of design and estimate documentation – UAH 1.3 million;
- author’s supervision – UAH 3.3 million.
“The more expensive the project, the more money the so-called certified specialists receive for engineering services,”
– notes Basalaeva.
At the same time, the quality of the work performed often does not meet the standards, and auditors regularly find uncompleted or poorly performed work.
Proposals of the State Audit Service
Basalaeva offers several solutions to reduce costs:
- Introduce a mandatory justification for each case of increasing construction costs.
- Create an independent government agency to certify construction participants.
- Refuse to engage third-party consultants if the customer already has in-house specialists.
- Revise the requirements for certification of experts and strengthen control over their work.
The State Audit Service insists that the implementation of these changes will save hundreds of millions of hryvnias on public construction projects and increase the efficiency of using budget funds.
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