“As the auditors found out, “Kyivmetrobud” used money for the construction of the metro for the wrong purpose”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
“As the auditors found out, “Kyivmetrobud”, which in 2018-2019 received advance payments from the budget in the amount of 2.59 billion hryvnias, used this money for the wrong purpose and did not use it within the terms specified by the contract. “Instead of continuing the construction of the Syretsko-Pecherska line, the contractor placed part of the funds transferred from KP “Kyiv Metropoliten” on deposits,” the State Audit Service says.
It is also claimed that during 2018-2019 budget funds were directed to the payment of various auditing, legal, and consulting services, and not to the construction of the subway itself.
“This did not prevent Kyiv Metro from transferring an additional 1.41 billion hryvnias to the contractor in December 2019. Of which only 44.1 million were mastered. As a result, almost 4 billion hryvnias turned into arrears,” the message states.
The State Audit Service says that now the restoration of the construction of the Vynohradar metro will cost 2.5 times more than the budget – according to the results of the recalculation of the work cost indicators, the estimate for the last 6 years has increased by 8 billion hryvnias: from 5.9 to almost 14 billion hryvnias.
In November 2018, based on the results of the tender, the Metropolitan Metro signed a contract with Kyiv Metrobud for 5.98 billion hryvnias for the construction of the extension of the Syretsko-Pecherska metro line to the Vynogradar residential area. The project was to be implemented by September 2021.
In February 2020, SBU employees reported searches in the structural subdivisions of the Kyivmetrobud company and in the branches of the state-owned Ukrgasbank. At that time, law enforcement officials announced a “scheme of fraudulent appropriation of budget funds, including the unjustified placement of UAH 1.7 billion allocated for the construction of the subway in deposit accounts.”
In December of this year, “Kyiv Metropoliten” terminated the contract with “Kyivmetrobud” due to the disruption of construction deadlines. The winner of the new tender in July this year was the company “Avtostrada”. In August, the metro concluded a contract with her for the construction of the metro on Vynogradar, the cost of which is already 13.78 billion hryvnias.