In Lviv region, a former district council deputy who headed one of the region’s municipal enterprises has been served with a new suspicion in a criminal case. Procedural supervision is being carried out by the Lviv Regional Prosecutor’s Office.
According to the investigation, the 43-year-old former councillor, while serving as director of the municipal enterprise between 2021 and 2023, organised a scheme to misappropriate budget funds. Employees of the enterprise were registered as individual entrepreneurs and were given special machinery for use free of charge.
Subsequently, in breach of public procurement legislation, the director, without holding tenders, concluded rental agreements with these individual entrepreneurs for loaders, bulldozers and other machinery. According to the investigation, the cost of services in the contracts was deliberately and significantly inflated compared with market prices, and on the basis of signed certificates of services rendered, funds of the municipal enterprise were unlawfully transferred to the entrepreneurs’ accounts.
Investigators established that the actual work was not carried out: no fuel was issued for the specified machines, and no journey logs or work orders were drawn up. In addition, according to available information, the municipal enterprise did not require the involvement of external machinery, as it had a sufficient fleet of its own vehicles.
As a result of these actions, according to preliminary estimates, damage of more than UAH 8 million was caused to the local budget. The former councillor is charged with misappropriation of another’s property through abuse of office, committed under martial law and on an especially large scale (Part 5 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
Investigative actions are ongoing, and other circumstances of the case are being established. This is already the third suspicion for the former official in recent months: previously he was accused of offering and providing an unlawful benefit to an official, as well as organising obstruction of the lawful activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in a special period.
The pre-trial investigation is being conducted by investigators of the Investigative Department of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Lviv region with operational support from the Strategic Investigations Department in Lviv region of the Strategic Investigations Department of the National Police of Ukraine. Pursuant to Article 62 of the Constitution of Ukraine, a person is presumed innocent of committing a crime until their guilt is proven in the manner prescribed by law and established by a guilty verdict of a court.