Officials in Kropyvnytskyi suspected of embezzling budget funds

The head of the education department of the Kropyvnytskyi City Council, her subordinate, as well as the co-founder, director, and accountant of the contractor are suspected of embezzling budget funds in a particularly large amount and official forgery.

This was told to the media by the spokeswoman for the regional prosecutor's office, Olesya Panchenko.

According to her information, investigators established that from October 2019 to June 2024, the suspects entered false information into official documents.

"They overstated the achieved level of actual savings, illegally receiving three million 200 thousand hryvnias of budget money." 

A petition has been filed with the court to apply preventive measures in the form of bail to all suspects, the spokeswoman said.

The National Police website states that the heads of contracting organizations artificially increased the number of days in the heating season during the introduction of restrictive anti-epidemic measures related to the coronavirus and martial law, despite the closure of educational institutions.

"As a result, the amount of energy consumed and the amount of payments increased, and city council officials signed official documents with fictitious data. The organized group of officials and commercial structures was exposed by operatives of the Strategic Investigations Department in the Kirovohrad region and investigators together with the SSU."

Five people are suspected of fraud with budget money, the police said in a statement.

"A systematic overrun of volumes was created and, accordingly, the costs of paying for services increased. Additional agreements were concluded to change the planned expenses. City council officials signed documents on the basis of which the contractor received money from the budget into his accounts, which was then distributed among all participants in the scheme."

According to police, the suspects embezzled over 3.5 million hryvnias.

We will remind, it was previously reported that officials of Kyivzelenbud are suspected of embezzling 5 million.

We also wrote that in the Odessa region an official demanded $3,000 for land