Yesterday During the war with Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), volunteers collected 150 million hryvnia for the army. Over the same period, Gosinvestproekt professionals reduced the state budget by a similar amount. The operation took place in several stages and ended quite recently – in December 2014. Just in time for the anniversary of Maidan. In February, an amazing document appeared in the Register of Judgments. The State Agency for Investment and Management of National Projects filed a lawsuit against its own division, State Enterprise Povitryany Express, demanding that the deposit agreement be terminated. The subordinates, they say, without informing their senior comrades, pumped the state enterprise’s money into deposit, thereby violating the chain of command.
True, there was nothing surprising in the fact of the trial. After all, by all indications, it was carried out not to find the truth, but to cement financial obligations. It is worth at least mentioning that the court decision, just in case, did not mention the price of the issue. So that no one gets excited. But it was still difficult not to get excited. Firstly, because of the name of the financial institution to which the state entrusted its money. This lucky winner was Sapphire Finance LLC.
At the trial, representatives of Povitryany Express explained their unusual choice: they interviewed four banks and came to the conclusion that the deposit interest rates were the highest not with them, but with the above-mentioned LLC.
The list of banks surveyed, by the way, was also impressive: “Nadra” by Dmitry Firtash, “Misto Bank” by Ivan Fursin/Sergey Levochkin, a small “Integral Bank” with Western Ukrainian shareholders and “Profin Bank”, about which a little later. “Sapphire Finance” itself could be called a mysterious office, if everything with it were not too simple. The company appeared at the end of 2013, in May 2014 it received a license from the National Securities and Stock Market Commission to engage in lending activities, and within six months it withdrew money from the State Investment Project, promising it 22% per annum.
The ultimate owner of the company turned out to be lawyer Ivan Radyk, a specialist in closing troubled enterprises. For example, the Dubnevich brothers, current people’s deputies of the “Petro Poroshenko Bloc” under the “UDAR” quota, used his services. Let us remember that for many years they made money from Ukrzaliznytsia by selling it anchors, which were once patented together with Mykhailo Kostyuk (there was such a general director of Ukrzaliznytsia). During the time of Yanukovych, it was not the easiest times for those who came from the Lviv nest of Georgy Kirpa.
(more details about the Dubnevich family in the article Bogdan and Yaroslav Dubnevich: the president’s corruption guard)
So the Dubnevichs had to dispose of their corporation “Colliy Repair Technologies”. The disposal took place through the nominal sale of the company to lawyer Radyk, who had already cleaned up all the tailings. After the operation, the Dubnevichs themselves entered the market with new companies – free of debts and claims from law enforcement agencies. Of course, we had a glimmer of hope that having borrowed money from Povitryany Express, Radyk would not begin to do what he does best – liquidate his enterprise. Moreover, the authorized capital of Sapphire Finance amounted to as much as 5 million UAH. But for the final conclusions, the smallest thing was missing – the amount of the deposit. I had to find out about him through unofficial channels.
The documents received by the editors finally showed the price of the issue – 82 million UAH. Moreover, it turned out that in the same December, Povitryany Express deposited another 25 million. Not in Sapphire, but in Profin Bank, that is, a bank from the magnificent four interviewed as part of an oral tender. The piquancy of this choice is added by the fact that in the same December, when the state lent money, the National Bank checked Profin Bank and, delicately without using the word “envelope,” described its activities as carrying out large-scale cash transactions in hryvnia, providing loans to newly created enterprises with further transfer to other counterparties.
Well, the natural ending is that the bank officially burst in January. Along with deposits. Well, now about the biggest surprise that arose after getting acquainted with the court hearing. By the way, it ended as planned – quite successfully for the participants in the process: the deposit agreement was recognized as legal. So, on the part of Povitryany Express, it was signed by acting director Gennady Dyachenko. He received this high post with the right to sign on November 8, 2014, signed everything in December and after that quickly parted with the position. Fortunately, the ZN.UA audience is prepared enough not to waste extra words explaining such an unexpected coincidence.
Moreover, we were interested in the name Dyachenko in a slightly different context. Another, but very similar – with an issue price of 46 million. Six months ago, our editorial office received documents indicating the purchase in 2014 by Povitryany Express of several plots of land near Boryspil. The land is unnecessary and too expensive. But before we describe this story, let’s make a short historical excursion. On the eve of Euro 2012, the authorities drew up plans to change Ukraine in the hope of increased investment and an accompanying economic breakthrough.
The one-time entry of hundreds of thousands of football fans into Ukraine inspired officials to dream of a future tourist Mecca. Accordingly, they immediately began to draw plans for the construction of infrastructure for pilgrims. One of these projects was the “national project” for the construction of a railway line between Kiev and Boryspil airport. For this reason, a separate state enterprise “Povitryany Express” was created within the structure of the State Investment Agency, headed by the well-known Vladislav Kaskiv. The government decided that this would make economic sense, and agreed with China on a loan of $373 million for construction in the hope that it would pay off in less than a thousand years. The fact that this was an inflamed delirium of the greedy consciousness of individual officials became clear immediately after Euro 2012.
The tourist flow practically did not increase, but friction arose with creditors. The Chinese insisted that the construction be carried out by Chinese companies. Ours tried to carve out at least some segment of financing. Because of this oblique stone fight for the right to develop/cut the budget, what happened happened – construction froze at the stage of “preparatory work”. However, “froze” in Ukrainian conditions also turned out to be a relative concept. Already in 2014, when Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) started a war against Ukraine and the remnants of tourists were swept out of our country, Povitryany Express began collecting land for the construction of a railway line.
According to the documents at our disposal, “Povitryany Express” in May 2014 managed to buy as many as three plots near Velyka Alexandrovka, Boryspil district, with a total area of 7.7 hectares for UAH 46.29 million. The purchase turned out to be both pointless and expensive. We will not now describe the entire chain of resale of these lands before they became the property of a state-owned enterprise. Let’s mention just two things. Firstly, the final seller was an individual with Sevastopol registration. Secondly, in the process of transferring these plots from hand to hand, the price of land increased 20 times.
If in 2013, being in private ownership, the valuation of the land was 2 million hryvnia, then a new valuation was carried out for sale to a state-owned enterprise, which amounted to 46 million. “Povitryany Express” meekly accepted this assessment at face value, paying the required amount. We don’t know the exact cost of the land. Perhaps the price of 2 million is underestimated for some tax minimizations. Only one thing is clear: the state has thrown 46 million down the drain, since no one will build an electric train to Boryspil, and even if they did, the trains still cannot be transported by air, landing on a piece of land allocated for this. But that’s not even the beauty of this story.
And the fact is that in May the purchase and sale agreements were signed by the same Gennady Dyachenko on behalf of Povitryany Express. Just like in the first story, he was temporarily accepted as director, and after signing he was immediately removed. Right up until November, when his talents were again useful to the state enterprise. As a result of his active economic activity, more than 150 million hryvnia disappeared from the accounts of the state enterprise, and debt receipts and unnecessary pieces of land, purchased at an inflated price, appeared in the “assets”. By the way, if the executive branch had read the Ukrainian press more carefully, it would have stopped this waste at the take-off. After all, games with the courts, whose decisions were supposed to cover up the disappearance of public funds, began at the State Investment Project not in December, but almost immediately after the Maidan.
The first such trial happened back in May. Then the “main investment department” sued Borzhava Resort LLC and Borisfen Trading House LLC demanding the return of the money – 165 million and 94 million UAH, respectively. It turned out that back in 2012, the Kaskiva National Agency lent these companies such difficult amounts at 3.75% per annum for the “Olympic Hope 2022” and “Quality Water” projects. Gosinvestproject motivated its claim in clerical language as follows: “the defendant’s obligations to repay the loans, both at the time of concluding these agreements and to this day, actually have no real security, which leads to a high risk of the borrower’s failure to fulfill its obligations.”
In human language it sounds like this: the state gave 250 million hryvnia as collateral for some bullshit (sorry, junk assets), and therefore you can say goodbye to the money. The appearance of this court decision caused a great resonance in the expert community. Firstly, no one could even imagine that the “investors” who were found through a “transparent competition” not only invested nothing themselves, but also milked the state budget. Secondly, it turned out that the journalistic investigations of several publications about the Borzhava Resort were like peas against the wall. Let us recall that at the end of 2012, data was published that “Borzhava Resort” is practically a family company of the then head of the National Agency Vladislav Kaskiv – with his managers, cousins, neighbors, etc.
Then journalists racked their brains about what, in addition to preferences in obtaining land and building recreational facilities, a “domestic investor” with a solid roof would receive. Everything turned out to be indecently banal – money. It would seem that after the Maidan justice should have triumphed. Well, or at least the details of the financial transactions of the “priests” have become clearer. Alas. After the publication of the court decision, at our request, people’s deputy Lesya Orobets, through parliamentary inquiries to the State Investment Project, tried to find out what property Borzhava pledged in exchange for 165 million. Three letters – three replies. The agency protected valuable information as best it could.
To the uninitiated, this might seem strange: why, the officials themselves filed a lawsuit in order to break the contracts. Well, they lost in court, because it’s an independent branch of government. Everything really looks like this, but only at first glance. On the contrary, we would be surprised if the deputy managed to obtain financial information from the National Agency. The thing is that, although Vladislav Kaskiv de jure left the State Investment Project, de facto he remained there after the Maidan. We will not publish the entire list of Kaskiv’s associates who remained in their posts in the investment department – it will not be short.
For the sake of clarity, we will only mention that after the Maidan, the National Agency was headed by Sergei Yevtushenko. In 2006, he was a member of the political council of Kaskiv’s “Pora” party and ran for parliament on the list of the “Pora-PRP” bloc. Since 2010, Yevtushenko worked as Kaskiv’s deputy at the State Investment Project, and was the head of the coordination council of the most scandalous national project “LNG terminal”, for which Kaskiv managed to find a “ski instructor” from Spain as an investor.
So there is nothing strange in the fact that after his dismissal, Kaskiv spent a long time convening working meetings of State Investment Project employees, at which, it seems, the prospects for investment in the Ukrainian economy were far from being discussed. There is nothing strange in the fact that the Agency lost all the courts that it initiated and did not even try to get involved in the appeal. The only pity is that nobody knows where 400 million went. We will try to find an answer to this question by contacting the Prosecutor General’s Office.
They say there have been some changes there. Let’s check. But not so long ago – in November – the first deputy head of the State Investment Project, Kirill Borisov, said that there would still be an electric train to Boryspil, although now it would run underground. This means that money will again appear in the Agency’s accounts, and again we will have to watch how it is buried once again.
Yuri Nikolov, Alexey Shalaysky, ZN.UA
