How the Belarusian Red Cross Society squanders donations from citizens and foreign grants

Belarusian Red Cross Over the years of its existence in independent Belarus, it has repeatedly become the cause of scandals. Voluntary-compulsory membership fees, participation in election commissions during elections, removal of children from the occupied territories of Ukraine and much more.

Today we will tell you how the Red Cross lives during the reign of Dmitry Shevtsov. At whose expense does he fly with his “retinue” on international business trips? How is foreign money distributed within international projects? About this and more in the new Bureau investigation.

We would like to thank “CyberPartisan”, BELPOL and the “Belarusian Medical Solidarity Foundation” for their assistance in preparing this material.

Thanks to CyberPartisans, we gained access to internal documentation of the Belarusian Red Cross Society (BORC). The leak contains more than 40 thousand different files. The “Bureau” verified these documents, analyzed them and discussed them with former BOKK employees, experts from the third sector and a lawyer. We do not disclose the names of our sources for their safety.

With this material we do not want to discredit all the good deeds performed by the BCCC. The Red Cross helped a large number of people. But in Belarus it is the largest humanitarian organization, and quite closed. Since 2020, society, human rights activists and the media have accumulated many questions for her, and recently interest in the activities of the BCCC has only been growing.

“Olya, will you be back before the 15th?) Or are you on vacation?” — one subscriber expresses concern.

“Are you on vacation? Congratulations!” – the other one rejoices.

And there is something. But first things first.

May 9, 2022 Turkish Red Crescent invited the Chairman of the BCCC Dmitry Cherednichenko to Istanbul from June 6 to 10 to exchange experiences.

But he did not go himself and sent the proposal to General Secretary Dmitry Shevtsov.

Ten for one – the Secretary General decided. And a week and a half later I bought nine tickets from Belavia for just over $4,300. Instead of Cherednichenko, Dmitry Shevtsov, his two deputies Inna Lemeshevskaya and Romania Zorina, heads of departments from the secretariat Olga Isakova and Igor Trusov, as well as economist Sergei Shagun gathered in Istanbul. Regional leaders Alla Smolyak, Natalya Tolkacheva and Nikolai Kuzmitsky, and then Galina Zhelanova, joined the top of the BCCC.

Total – 10 people. The delegation is impressive. Shevtsov asks at Minsk National Airport provide a VIP lounge for departure free of charge. Cause? As part of the delegation, a whole member of the Council of the Republic and concurrently the chairman of the Gomel BCCC, Alla Smolyak, is flying, and they also have a lot of fragile souvenirs for their Turkish colleagues.

The BOKK staff were on this trip longer than the program required, and in larger numbers, according to sources not connected with each other. Our interlocutors paid special attention to Dmitry Shevtsov and Natalya Tolkacheva.

“Shevtsov gathered everyone who was possible and not possible. Everyone was indignant. Well, how indignant were you? Quietly to yourself. Because [Шевцов] I took my mistress there too. Why does he drag her everywhere? I understand that they want to spend time [вместе]but not at the expense of membership fees,” says a former BOKK employee.

We called Natalia Tolkacheva, but she refused to answer our questions and hung up.

Indeed, the Belarusian delegation received an invitation to Istanbul for five days, but stayed there much longer.

On the eve of the trip, Shevtsov issued order for an eight-day business trip – from 4 to 11 June.

And the delegation judging by the tickets, and returned only early in the morning of June 13. It turns out that instead of the five initially proposed days, the BOKK employees stayed in Istanbul for nine whole days.

What were they doing there? The travel assignments for all secretariat employees are completely the same; from them it is impossible to understand what each specific member of the Belarusian delegation was doing.

For example, initially the visit program stated at the meeting with the consul that five people from the Red Cross would be present. But in the reporting photographs at the negotiating table we see only three – Dmitry Shevtsov, Inna Lemeshevskaya and Alla Smolyak. Olga Isakova and Romania Zorina are not there. Where the others were at that time and what they were doing is a mystery. Were you sitting in the waiting room?

On BOKK website the news for June 8 lists the “achievements” of the delegation: visited, got acquainted, met. Separately mentioned is the meeting with the head of the Turkish Red Crescent and the signing of annexes to the memorandum of understanding with him. Almost the entire business trip program was completed three days before its end.

Already on the morning of June 11 in Istanbul, the delegation discussed the results of the trip. Then the city was at the disposal of completely free employees until departure on the evening of June 12. The company arrived in Belarus on June 13 at about 5 am.

How much did this trip cost the top BOKK? Unfortunately, the leak does not contain receipts or other documents for accommodation and meals, only air tickets. But approximate costs can be calculated. For this we turned to resolution of the Council of Ministers, which guides the BOKK during foreign business trips. A Belarusian worker in Turkey is entitled to $40 travel allowance per day, and another $90 for housing expenses. Weekends, days of departure and arrival are paid as working days. According to our calculations, we spent at least about 11 thousand dollars on accommodation and food. Total – more than 15 thousand dollars, including air tickets.

The documents show that Shevtsov planned to cover living expenses from a certain project of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). We sent a request to this organization, and they confirmed that they provided the BCCC with minimal financial support, but did not specify how much:

“The IFRC supported this opportunity for cooperation by covering the travel costs of a small part of the delegation (two people), which is normal practice.”

So, a luxurious trip to Istanbul was paid for for two employees from the IFRC money and for 8 from the BOKK’s own funds. What are own funds? This is not money from social orders or funding from foreign donors. These include donations, sponsorships and membership fees. The same ones that make up almost 40% of the entire BOCC budget for 2022.

They are collected from Belarusians on a voluntary-compulsory basis from hospitals and schools.

“I came to the Red Cross with sparkling eyes and full of enthusiasm. I wanted to help people. But after a few years I left completely disappointed. I did not fulfill the collection plans, and therefore we were not given money for the organization’s activities,” says a former Red Cross employee.

Shevtsov himself, as soon as he came to his post, published order and approximately doubled bonuses the management team for their activity in shaking out money from the population.

And looking at quarterly bonus amountsyou believe that the regions, with this approach, have truly become leaders in extortion.

Back in 2021, boarding houses for the elderly and disabled, cultural centers and nurseries began to be added en masse to primary organizations. In other words, they began to collect from those who themselves would have come in handy with this help.

“The secretariat is engaged in extracting funds from the regions. And if we assume that they have an antediluvian labor organization, I still can’t imagine what they do there. It is necessary to create an apparatus that will manage the apparatus,” says Andrey Strizhak, head of the BySol Foundation, with extensive experience in the civil sector.

The next business trip, which raised questions in our minds, was also paid for partly through sponsorship, donations from the public and membership fees.

We will calculate travel allowances again according to the Council of Ministers table. For Italy it’s 85 euros per day or 2550 for everyone. Total almost 14,000 euros. Normal amount for Roman holidays.

True, there is a nuance. As can be seen from the hotel bills, the BOKK itself violated resolution of the Council of Ministers on allowable housing costs. Should be 135 euros per night, and one of the members of this delegation had a premium room costing almost 1,200 euros for six nights, or 235 euros per night. That is, living expenses are more than one and a half times higher than normal. One can only guess who got this number. But other rooms are also more expensive than the established norm.

“If in the case of Turkey we talked about the peculiarities of Shevtsov’s managerial abilities, then here we can already see consistency. If it happened just once, he might have missed something. I guess he treats the BOKK like it’s his pocket. Shevtsov’s hotel costs $200 per night. If this is Switzerland, Norway, then economy can really cost $100. But in Italy you could definitely find it cheaper. If we are talking about non-profit organizations, then these should be standard or economy rooms. It seems that here we are no longer talking about Shevtsov’s managerial abilities, but about the love of a beautiful life at someone else’s expense,” comments Andrey Strizhak.

This time, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies agreed to cover the costs of a maximum of 7,500 euros, taking and redistributing them from the projects they sponsor. It turns out that the BOKK again took almost the same amount from its own treasury, because nothing is spared for Rome.

These two trips by representatives of the top members of the BCCC clearly demonstrate that the organization does not save money on business trips. Instead of five days, they fly for nine and order premium rooms. And all this is due to voluntary-compulsory contributions and money allocated for specific projects from international organizations.

We called First Deputy Secretary General Romania Zorina and her head Dmitry Shevtsov, but they refused to answer our questions. We then sent an official request to the BCCC, but received no response.

After this, we decided to take a closer look at what and how this public organization spends the money that international donors allocate to it. And this, for a moment, is almost 60% of the BOCC budget for 2022. The year before last, BOKK received almost 13 million rubles from international donors. Let’s examine some of the grants. What programs does BOKK receive international money for, how and for what is the budget allocated, and what is their social effectiveness?

What does the budget of the Belarusian Red Cross consist of?

We have at our disposal the BOKK financial report for 2022, from which we can judge from what sources the organization’s budget is made up.

The main sources of funding are money from foreign donors, membership fees and donations from the public. Moreover, more than half of all funding comes from foreign donors. In 2022, they transferred a record amount to BOKK over the past five years – 12.9 million rubles, or 57.2% of the organization’s total budget.

According to the report, the largest foreign donor is the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). They account for 34% of all foreign receipts. Yes, it was in this federation that it was suspended membership BOKK because of Shevtsov’s actions and statements.

The IFRC responded to the Bureau’s request regarding this grant. In their opinion, “in the midst of a disaster, people need information as much as they need water, food, medicine or blood.” In emergencies like pandemics, “information saves lives.”

“I think this project was written in order to get some funding and support the secretariat staff. This was done often. And the adverse reaction is print [листовки]show [деятельность]. It’s easier to publicize any information campaign than to provide direct assistance to the wards,” says a former employee of the BCCC.

A larger grant has been allocated for the project – 140 thousand euros from October 1, 2021 to May 31, 2022.

The goals are simple: to improve access to vaccination against coronavirus for vulnerable categories of the population living in remote areas of the Brest, Grodno and Minsk regions. BOKK planned to assist two thousand people and in general inform 500 thousand about vaccination.

Let’s look at what the money was actually spent on, and most importantly, how much of it was spent for the targeted needs of the grant.

For a stair lift for Grodno – 3,739 euros, for three mobile lifts – 8,414 euros. We purchased personal protective equipment, pulse oximeters and thermometers for employees and volunteers for 8,694 euros. Another 3,739 euros were spent on printed materials and promotional products. Total almost 21 thousand euros.

Separately, it is worth highlighting trainings, seminars and coordination meetings. We will consider them part of the program to inform the population. A total of 22,765 euros have been allocated for them.

Of course, there are also expenses for cars that will take people to get vaccinated. Maintenance and fuel cost 6 thousand euros. Another 1,400 euros have been allocated for some additional transport services.

So, let’s come up with a budget. 39%, or 55 thousand euros, of the allocated amount were spent on information about vaccination, as well as assistance to specific people. The rest of the money was spent on employee salaries and improving the so-called material and technical base of the BOKK. Namely, the purchase of equipment for volunteers, equipment and other things.

“The fact that project management costs 58 thousand is a disproportionate expense. The number of people in the project means, at a minimum, an irrational and ineffective distribution of money, the wrong volumes. Such a staff is definitely bloated and it looks unnatural,” Andrei Strizhak commented on this distribution of the grant budget.

But we also separately calculated how much of these 124 thousand will go to pay for a huge staff – about 80 thousand dollars, or 65% of the money issued.

In the past, the doctor and deputy actively participated in elections. At presidential 2015 elections he is entrusted with the position of chairman of the Minsk City Election Commission. He holds this position in 2017 in elections to the Minsk City Council, and in 2019 in the House of Representatives elections, and in the infamous presidential elections in 2020.

Also in 2020, Shevtsov visits “secret inauguration” Alexandra Lukashenko. He shared his impressions in a commentary for the newspaper of the Lukashenko Administration: “The inauguration ceremony was very eventful and emotional. The President emphasized that we resisted those forces that tried to seize power and change the constitutional system.”

Due to the scandalous trip of the Secretary General to the occupied Ukrainian territories, the membership of the Belarusian Red Cross in the international organization paused. As of December 1, any new funding for the BCCC will be suspended. This could threaten big problems for the largest Belarusian public organization, since it lives mainly at the expense of money from foreign donors. According to the 2022 report, members of the international Red Cross and Red Crescent movement provided 58% of all international assistance to the BCRC. Another 41% came from money from UN agencies.

The Belarusian UN office told us that they are now completing current projects with BOKK, and are looking for a replacement for them in the future. Providing assistance is possible through other non-governmental organizations or directly to the same hospitals.

“The United Nations in Belarus takes note of the information on the suspension of membership of the Belarusian Red Cross (BRC) in the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). UN agencies in Belarus are focused on completing existing projects with the Belarusian Red Cross. We are exploring alternative methods to continue to provide essential support to vulnerable communities in Belarus to ensure the continuity of humanitarian assistance during this transition period,” the UN office in Belarus noted.

Who or what will the Red Cross fill this budget hole with? According to our source, BOKK plans to lay off 30% of its employees. It turns out that it will be like in that joke: “Dad, so, will you drink less now? No, son, now you will eat less.”