A school in Poltava region accidentally announced a tender for tangerines worth 20 trillion hryvnias
28 July 2025 16:46
The Varvarovskaya special school in Poltava region accidentally put out a tender for the purchase of tangerines and other products worth 20 trillion hryvnias. Mykola Tkachenko, CEO of the state enterprise Prozorro, told this in an interview with UNIAN , "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
The incident occurred due to a human error during the formation of the expected cost of the procurement. The Prozorro system, which records even the smallest transactions, automatically published an abnormally high request, which immediately attracted the attention of analysts and civic activists.
“We see such things because the system is open. And even if there is an obvious fake somewhere – for example, a person made a mistake by a few zeros – it is visible to everyone. Plus, the system can suggest that you probably meant to specify a different amount,” Tkachenko explained.
According to him, Prozorro helps to identify not only technical failures but also potentially corrupt schemes. It is transparency and publicity that have become the main tools for controlling the spending of public funds.
The “golden tangerines” incident was another reminder of how important it is to have digital filters and human attentiveness at the same time – even in systems that process more than UAH 300 billion every quarter.
Prozorro has been operating since 2016 as a mandatory electronic public procurement system. All public spending by government agencies, schools, hospitals, military units, etc. goes through it.
