NACP suspends funding for “Holos” due to violations in reports worth almost UAH 5 million
27 June 2024 11:05
The National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) is suspending funding for the Voice political party due to inaccurate information in its reports worth almost UAH 5 million. This was reported by "Komersant Ukrainian" with reference to the NAPC.
“The National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) has identified a number of significant violations in the reports of the Voice political party on property, income and financial liabilities for the third and fourth quarters of 2020. The party’s reports revealed inaccurate information worth more than UAH 4.725 million,”
– the statement said.
The NAPC stressed that, according to the Law “On Political Parties”, a repeated violation, which consists in submitting a report to the NAPC containing inaccurate information about the expenses of a political party in excess of 20 minimum wages (as of 01.01.2020 – UAH 94,460), is the basis for a decision to terminate the party’s state funding.
It is noted that, based on the results of the analysis of the report for the third quarter, the NACP found that the political party “Voice” had concluded service agreements with LLC “Mainis” for UAH 1 million.
These services include oral consultations and explanations on practical aspects of the application of the Electoral Code of Ukraine for party representatives; oral legal advice on the electoral process for members of precinct election commissions in local elections; verification of the correctness of documents for observers at the regular local elections on 25 October 2020.
“But the said company did not provide these services to the party. This is confirmed, in particular, by materials received from public authorities (the State Bureau of Investigation, the State Tax Service of Ukraine), information databases, and therefore the information is unreliable,”
– the NACP said.
It is also reported that, according to the NACP, the political party entered into contracts with two individual entrepreneurs for UAH 274,000, which contain inaccurate information. In particular, they contain information about the numbers of draft laws that had not yet been registered in the Parliament at the time of the contracts.
“These violations are grounds for suspension of state funding of the statutory activities of the political party until the causes of the violation are eliminated,”
– the NACP stressed.
In addition, the report for the fourth quarter of 2020 revealed that the Voice political party had again signed contracts with Mainis LLC worth UAH 1 million.
Also, the Kyiv City Territorial Organisation signed a contract for the provision of services worth more than UAH 2 million 452 thousand 500. At the same time, the NACP also found that the company did not provide any services. Therefore, the report contains inaccurate information totalling more than UAH 3 million 452 thousand 500, the NAPC said.
In addition, the report identified other violations and shortcomings that were not related to the inaccuracy of the information, the NAPC said.
“That is, for two quarters of 2020, the political party “Voice” included inaccurate information in the report totalling UAH 4 million 726 thousand 500. This is the basis for termination of state funding of the party’s statutory activities,”
– the NACP said.
The NACP sent the relevant materials to the State Bureau of Investigation.
What is known about the Golos party
The Voice party was established in 2019 on the initiative of Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, frontman of the band Okean Elzy.
The party took part in the early parliamentary elections of 2019 and the local elections of 2020. The party is represented in the Verkhovna Rada by 20 MPs: Yulia Klymenko, Kira Rudyk, Yaroslav Zheleznyak, Oleksandra Ustinova, Oleh Makarov, Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, Serhiy Rakhmanin, Solomiya Bobrovska, Olha Stefanyshyna, Volodymyr Tsabal, Andriy Osadchuk, Roman Kostenko, Roman Lozynskyi, Inna Sovsun, Lesia Vasylenko, Rustem Umerov, Natalia Pipa, Halyna Vasylchenko, and Yaroslav Rushchyshyn.
Since 2021, it has been considered an ally in voting with the presidential party “Servant of the People”
The NACP has already suspended funding for “Holos” due to the party’s reporting in the second quarter of 2020 of inaccurate information on expenditures of more than UAH 1.3 million in favour of a number of individual entrepreneurs. After the reporting obligation was restored, the party submitted clarifying documents to the NACP, which provided for the settlement of relations with the said counterparties, and the NACP returned the funding.
In 2020, the NACP suspended funding for two political parties – Batkivshchyna and Holos – due to irregularities in their reports, and in 2021, it suspended funding for the Servant of the People party. After these parties eliminated the violations, the NACP resumed funding them.
