SBI investigation into fake disability of officials reveals impressive scale of corruption
13 August 14:22
The State Bureau of Investigation has announced the cancellation of more than 800 unjustified decisions of medical and social expert commissions on disability for law enforcement officers and government officials. This was announced by SBI Director Oleksiy Sukhachov, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
Currently, the activities of more than 70 state bodies and 2630 medical expert cases of officials are being checked. The scale of the violations is impressive. Out of nearly 2,000 cases reviewed, more than 800 decisions have been canceled as unfounded, which is 40%. In more than 400 cases, the disability group or term was changed. That is, violations were found in 60% of cases. Almost 100 officials were summoned for re-examination.
Most violations were found in key government agencies. For example, 244 decisions out of 587 reviewed were canceled at the State Customs Service, 162 decisions out of 336 reviewed at the Prosecutor’s Office, and 161 decisions out of 423 reviewed at the State Tax Service. A significant number of violations were also recorded in the State Migration Service and the National Police of Ukraine.
According to the head of the SBI, fictitious disability was issued mainly for two purposes: to receive a pension and to avoid possible military service. Such motives are especially relevant in the context of martial law.
Several criminal proceedings have been opened. The deputy chief physician of the Lviv Regional Center for Medical and Social Expertise was notified of suspicion. The former head of the Khmelnytsky District Prosecutor’s Office and the former head of the Cherkasy District Prosecutor’s Office were found to be in collusion with the head of the MSEC. Materials on several officials have already been sent to the court, including the prosecutor of the Khrystynivka Department of the Uman District Prosecutor’s Office.
The SBI claims that the systematic inspection is ongoing in all regions of Ukraine and covers all state bodies without exception.
The inspections are conducted within the framework of criminal proceedings in accordance with the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of October 22, 2024, enacted by a Presidential Decree. To coordinate the work, an interagency working group of representatives of the State Bureau of Investigation, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and other law enforcement agencies was set up, which approved an action plan last November.
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Prosecutors with disabilities
In the fall of 2024, Ukraine was shaken by a high-profile scandal surrounding the head of the Khmelnytsky MSEC, Tetiana Krupa, who issued “disability” certificates to 50 prosecutors.
Media journalists learned that almost all prosecutors in the Khmelnytsky region were classified as group 2 disabled, according to the decision of the chief doctor of the MSEC, Tetiana Krupa. They have been receiving disability pensions from the state for years and continue to do so, according to the decisions of the head of the Pension Fund, Oleksandr Krupa, the son of the corruption suspect.
During a search of Krupa’s workplace at the regional medical examination commission, the State Bureau of Investigation found $104,000 that Krupa received from 30 citizens between October 2 and 4, or about $3,000 to $4,000 per person for obtaining a disability certificate. “The corruption scheme worked on a daily and massive scale, on a first-come, first-served basis,” Butusov wrote.
“The essence of the scheme was that Tetyana Krupa’s disability was most often issued to women. After all, if a disabled wife has a disability, her husband takes care of the disabled person and thus is automatically excluded from the list of those eligible for mobilization. And the statistics of evaders are concealed, because no one would notice that women are the ones who register disabilities.
Prosecutors do not need dividends from disability as cash payments. Every prosecutor in the region has dozens of hectares of land, apartments, houses, and cars. However, according to the labor law, disabled people have an advantage in employment and it is much more difficult to fire them when they are moved from one position to another. The presence of a disabled wife is an additional reason to prevent a prosecutor from being transferred from his “own” region, where he has all his friends, property, and flows, to some other region that is not as “convenient.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy demanded the resignation of Prosecutor General Kostin and urgent reform of disability assessment, including the disbanding of existing medical and social expert commissions by the end of 2024.
The SBU served suspicion notices to at least 64 MSEC officials for issuing unlawful certificates; more than 4,016 disability certificates were canceled.
This resulted in the dismissal of the Prosecutor General, criminal proceedings against MSEC officials and one of the first prosecutors involved in the case.
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