Ostap Semerak: The pesticide business of a political failure from the Ministry of Ecology
Where did this “modest guy”, who according to his declarations lived on one salary all his life, suddenly get a million-dollar fortune? The current Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Ostap Semerak has been avoiding an honest answer to this question for several months now. And while journalists were trying to find out the origin of his apartment in an elite high-rise building and expensive foreign cars, Semerak was engaged in dubious manipulations in the field of waste disposal. For several years, this topic “fed” many heads of the Ministry of Ecology and businessmen involved with them – and now, perhaps, it increases the capital of the current minister.
Ostap Semerak. Scandalous apartment in a scandalous house
Until the fall of 2016, Ostap Semerak was the most inconspicuous minister in the Groysman government. And even earlier, he received virtually no media attention at all – even when he held the post of cabinet minister in Yatsenyuk’s first government from February to December 2014. Semerak was “set up” by a detailed electronic declaration of income and property for 2015, which all Ukrainian MPs and high-ranking officials were forced to submit. These declarations achieved their goal of uncovering the true extent of politicians’ wealth. And when the shock of tens of millions of dollars and hryvnias declared in cash under the beds of Ukraine’s richest people had passed, attention was turned to the “poor and wretched,” who had previously only included their salaries in their declarations.
Among them was Ostap Semerak, who declared, in addition to a 52 sq. m. apartment, a mansion in an elite high-rise building with an area of 354.7 sq. m., which he owns in half with his wife. In the declaration, Semerak wrote down these “halves” in the most literal sense: 177.35 sq. m. each, and also wrote down the “halves” of two parking spaces at the same apartment (8.45 and 8.70 sq. m.). Fortunately, the Semerak spouses do not jointly own cars, otherwise the minister would have probably also written them down in the declaration as “half”. The head of the Ministry of Ecology owns a 2006 Jaguar S-type and a 2011 Volkswagen Touareg (purchased for 993 thousand hryvnia), and his wife drives a 2011 Toyota Camry (price unknown). In addition, Ostap Semerak also received 1.766 million hryvnia in 2015 for “alienation of real estate”. In addition, he also had 190 thousand hryvnia and 160.5 thousand dollars.
It would seem to be a pretty coherent declaration – and Semerak himself was also sure of it. However, meticulous journalists quickly dug up several facts that instantly spoiled the bright image of the “honest professional” from the “government of reformers.” Firstly, they established that the house on Shchorsa Street (now Konovalets) No. 36v is an elite high-rise with a rather scandalous past. It turned out that the land on which it stands was allocated by the Kyiv City Council in 2008 to the Kyiv Institute of Culture at the request of its rector Mykhailo Poplavsky – for the construction of a new student dormitory. However, there was no dormitory even in the project: this plot was immediately sold for commercial development to Zhitlo-bud LLC – whose owner Ivan Kurovsky was a people’s deputy of the BYuT faction and was part of the circle of closest partners of the then mayor Leonid Chernovetsky (Read more about him in the article Leonid Chernovetsky: How “Lenya Kosmos” Robbed Kyiv and Moved to Georgia). Thanks to this “roof”, this company successfully built objects even during the crisis of 2008-2009. Secondly, this house was originally designed for VIP apartments, so the apartments in it are very expensive even by Kyiv standards: in 2011-2013, the same apartment in it cost 800-850 thousand dollars, and that’s without finishing! Together with the cost of luxury plumbing, parquet ceilings, services of designers and workers, and two parking spaces, the new home for the Semerak spouses cost about 900-950 thousand dollars.
Thirdly, if Ostap Semerak were a famous oligarch, such a purchase would not have surprised anyone. But this “grey man” always declared modest income, so journalists had a reasonable question about where he got the money for such an apartment – and for his cars too. The publication “Nabladel” even sent him an official journalistic request – to which Ostap Semerak never bothered to respond.
Instead, a month after submitting the request, Semerak decided to play the typical “fool” – as some Ukrainian politicians sometimes do, lacking the courage or arguments to give a direct answer. In the “Rendezvous” program on Channel 5 (owned by Poroshenko), Semerak seemingly “accidentally” touched on the topic of his apartment and, in a relaxed atmosphere, “explained” that he received the money to buy it after selling a plot in a gardening cooperative. And he allegedly received the plot itself back in 2009 as a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada instead of… an apartment.
The attempt to justify himself turned out to be unconvincing – especially since the journalists from “Nabladel” had previously smashed to smithereens the version about the “sale of the plot”.
Firstly, the plots in the “garden cooperatives”, even near Kiev, were not worth 800 thousand dollars. Secondly, journalists established that the apartment was purchased by the Semerak couple in 2011-2012, while Ostap Mikhailovich sold his land plot (26 acres) in 2014, without indicating the income received. Thirdly, which was very strange, in 2014 the Semeraks issued a new warrant for this apartment: it turned out that they bought it only in 2014, but Semerak indicated this apartment in his declaration for 2013. Fourthly, Ostap Semerak’s declaration for 2013 strangely disappeared from the accessible register. All this gave reason to take an even closer look at the personality of the head of the Ministry of Ecology and to dig into his past in more detail.
Ostap Semerak. Party Clerk
Ostap Mykhailovych Semerak was born on June 27, 1972 in Lviv, in the family of a teacher of the Lviv Fire-Technical School (now the rector of the Lviv State University of Life Safety) Mykhailo Mykhailovych Semerak and his wife, economist Stefania Vasilievna Semerak. In 1989, Ostap entered the Lviv State University named after Franko (Faculty of Physics), and already in the fall of 1990 he became interested in politics and took part in the so-called “revolution on granite”. As part of a delegation of Lviv students, they came to Kyiv, where, according to him, they were initially received very unfriendly, but later “progressive Kiev youth” came to the Maidan and supported the protests. The movement greatly captivated Ostap, but upon returning to Lviv, he did not join either Rukh or the radical nationalists – according to Skelet.Info, – under the influence of his parents. However, in 1992, Ostap Semerak “showed up” in Kyiv again: he entered the “revived” (after its closure in 1817) Kiev-Mohyla Academy for a course in political science, while still studying at Lviv State University. At the same time, Semerak became a co-founder and deputy of the Student Brotherhood of the Academy.
After defending his diploma in Lviv, he finally moved to Kyiv, devoting himself to politics. However, Semerak did not become a public politician: while his “brothers” in the “revolution on granite” became party leaders and people’s deputies, Ostap found himself in the role of a gray and inconspicuous “party clerk”. In 1994-96, Semerak was the coordinator of the “School of Young Politicians” from the Ukrainian Fund for Reform Support, and then headed the Fund for Assistance to the Development of Political Culture. Both funds were associated with the “Renaissance” Fund (a branch of the Soros Foundation) and the American “institutes of democracy”, being typical “grant-eating” organizations. These funds helped him find a new job: in 1997, Semerak got into the Verkhovna Rada – but not as a deputy, but as the head of the secretariat of the “PRP” faction, essentially coordinating the work of the assistants of the people’s deputies. Semerak worked in this position for quite a long time: in 2002 he headed the secretariat of the Our Ukraine faction (which included the PRP), in 2005-2006 he again headed the secretariat of the PRP (which left NU and merged with the PORA party). Attempts to become a deputy himself ended in failure: in majoritarian districts he did not get more than 10%, and in the PRP party lists he was given unpassable places. In 2006, the head of the Kyiv regional administration, Vera Ulyanchenko, took pity on the quiet, executive “boy” and took him on as her deputy (Read more about her in the article Ulyanchenko – “Baba Vera”: Komsomol member, thief and the President’s “mommy”) – and Semerak worked in this position until November 2007. Considering Ulyanchenko’s mega-corrupt reputation, it’s simply surprising that Semerak’s name didn’t appear in her schemes.
Ostap and Orisya
At this time, Semerak was developing his future strategic connections. In the Ulyanchenko administration, he became close to Yulia Pidkomorna, whom he would later lobby twice for a position in the Cabinet of Ministers. And through his wife Orisya (Arina), he met her business partner in Ost-Group LLC, Oleg Didenko (the future head of Gaz Ukrainy).
But Ostap Semerak himself in 1998, together with his old friend (also a “young politician”) Sergei Yevtushenko, registered Ergo-Ivano-Frankivsk LLC, which owned several building materials stores. In 2007, the director of this enterprise was Konstantin Magnovsky, a figure in one interesting scandal.
In 2007-2008, citizen Magnovsky received several loans from Raiffeisen Bank Aval for a total of 680 thousand dollars. His property guarantors were Gabriela Firm LLC (founder Magnovsky, director L.V. Sorokina) and Ergo-Ivano-Frankivsk LLC – that is, its actual owners Semerak and Yevtushenko. For what purpose exactly the loan was taken remains unclear, but it was never returned. Perhaps it “burned up” during the 2008 crisis, or perhaps it was squandered for other purposes. And here it is interesting that immediately after Magnovsky received the first “tranche” of this loan, on November 22, 2007, Ostap Semerak bought a Jaguar S-type car (2006). Is it a coincidence? Subsequently, Raiffeisenbank Aval tried three times (in 2009, 2012 and 2014) to collect the loan and interest from Magnovsky and his guarantors, or at least to sue the guarantors for some property, but in vain: in 2013, Semerak bankrupted Ergo-Ivano-Frankivsk LLC, effectively leaving the bank with nothing.
That same “Jaguar S-type”
By that time, Ostap Semerak had already realized the dream of his youth: in 2007, at the request of Vira Ulyanchenko, he received a passing place on the BYuT list and for the first time in 10 years entered the Verkhovna Rada as a people’s deputy – where he worked for the next four and a half years, as a member of the budget committee. But his business partner Sergei Yevtushenko in 2010 became the right hand of the head of the State Agency for the Management of National Projects Vladislav Kaskiv – a scandalous corrupt official and embezzler. And it was Sergei Yevtushenko who was involved in the LNG terminal project, which ended in a grandiose scam worth a billion dollars!
Moreover, in March 2014, after Kaskiv fled, Yevtushenko took his place – where he successfully “worked” until the liquidation of the Agency in 2015. By the way, Sergei Yevtushenko has a younger brother, Konstantin, who posed as a successful businessman (owner of the investment company “Merit Investment Group”), posing on the TV show “Bachelors” and in the magazine “Cosmopolitan Ukraine”. But as it turned out, his “capital” was only the money of his brother, who diligently “sawed” state funds together with Kaskiv. And the promotion of Konstantin resembled one of the Agency’s scams, which concluded contracts with fictitious “big businessmen”. Was Ostap Semerak, a member of the Verkhovna Rada Budget Committee, somehow involved in this? It is possible! It is gradually becoming clear how he could find the money for such a luxurious apartment. Moreover, in 2011, Semerak bought himself a Volkswagen Touareg crossover for 993 thousand hryvnias – wasn’t this too expensive a purchase for a deputy whose annual salary was just over 70 thousand?
Scandalous Ministry of Ecology
In early 2012, Ostap Semerak launched a vigorous foreign policy activity: he traveled to Moscow to participate in opposition rallies on Bolotnaya Square, met with his old acquaintance from the “democratic funds” Boris Nemtsov, and invited the new Russian oppositionist Alexei Navalny to Kyiv. However, at the end of the year, politician Semerak suffered another collapse: in the parliamentary elections, his seat No. 76 in the “Batkivshchyna” list turned out to be unwinnable. And Semerak “lay low” for a year and a half, not appearing in public and, apparently, doing the finishing touches to his huge luxury apartment. He returned to politics immediately after the second Maidan: on February 27, Ostap Semerak received the post of minister of the cabinet of ministers in the government of Arseniy Yatsenyuk. His first steps were lobbying for the candidacies of his acquaintances and business partners for positions in power. Yulia Pidkomornaya (as deputy head of the Cabinet Minister’s Service) and Sergei Yevtushenko (who took Kaskiv’s place) were immediately placed in the post. He also helped Oleg Korban take the post of deputy head of the Kyiv regional administration.
Semerak’s political (or business) weight has grown significantly: in the snap parliamentary elections of 2014, he was elected as No. 33 on the People’s Front list – and immediately went to the Verkhovna Rada, taking Yulia Pidkomornaya (assistant to a deputy) with him. But in May 2015, he got her a job as the head of the Department for Providing Communications and Organizational Work of the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine. This gave a good boost to Pidkomornaya’s career: at the end of 2016, she was appointed Secretary of State of the Ministry of Energy. And this, according to Skeleton.Infois not the only person close to Semerak in this department: since 2014, his wife’s business partner Oleg Didenko headed the company “Gas of Ukraine”, and now he has become the head of the company that replaced it, “Gas Distribution Systems of Ukraine” LLC.
Ostap Semerak
Ostap Semerak himself became the head of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources on April 14, 2016. At first glance, it’s not such a lucrative position, but only at first glance! The new head of the department quickly mastered three areas in it, which has already caused a storm of public indignation and even accusations of corruption against Semerak – so he would have become “famous” even without this scandalous story with an elite apartment and an expensive car park.
The first area was the disposal of hazardous chemicals. It would seem, well, what can you steal here – a barrel of old pesticides? No, you can not steal, but “master”, and not pesticides, but budget funds allocated for their disposal! Several ecology ministers have been actively “earning” and quickly “burning” on this over the past five years, but the main defendant in the case was the same cunning businessman. Back in 2012, the then head of the Ministry of Ecology Nikolai Zlochevsky (Read more about him in the article Why does the devil wear Prada and Zlochevsky wears Zlocci?) and an entrepreneur with an Israeli passport, Ilya Marchevsky (owner of the Israeli company SI Group Consort Ltd.) decided to profit from the environmental disaster in the city of Kalush, for the elimination of which 330 million hryvnias were allocated from the budget. They created an intricate scheme, within the framework of which ordinary construction waste was taken out for recycling (to Britain) along with contaminated soil. At the same time, in collusion with the minister, all potential competitors of SI Group Consort Ltd., who had licenses and the ability to carry out this work, were previously eliminated from the market. After a series of publications (the topic was led by Tatyana Chornovol), Zlochevsky was removed from his post, and Marchevsky was arrested and brought to trial.
Euromaidan released and acquitted Marchevsky, who continued to “stir up” the old scheme with the new Minister of Ecology Igor Shevchenko. Their victims were OOO “Service Center for Oil Regeneration”, which was removed from the tender – and “SI Group Consort Ltd” was already preparing to export abroad soil mixed with fuel oil and sand from wastelands. Then “Eco-Nova” almost became their victim – the only company in Ukraine that had equipment for the clean disposal of pesticides. However, during the confrontation between Shevchenko and Yatsenyuk, he was fired, and since July 2015 the ministry has been headed by his deputy Sergei Kurykin – also dismissed with scandal in February 2016 on charges of fraud with tenders for Kyoto Protocol money. As we can see, the Ministry of Ecology is a scandalous and corrupt agency no less than any other! And so Ostap Semerak, who headed it in April 21016, already in the summer organized unscheduled inspections of the activities of a number of firms – and “Eco-Nova” was once again caught in the crossfire! Which means that somewhere near Semerak, the familiar silhouette of Marchevsky was already looming!
Another interesting fact: one of the figures in these affairs was named as the head of the Department of Economy and Finance of the Ministry of Natural Resources, Evdokiya Vasilyevna Yarovaya. So, having already outlived four ministers, she continues her fruitful work under Ostap Semerak.
But the Ministry of Ecology does not live on pesticides alone! It turns out that issuing licenses for the collection, processing and disposal of ordinary household waste is also a profitable business! Especially when licenses are issued to companies that exist only on paper – as happened in the Odessa region. Where LLC NPK Ukrecoprom (EDRPOU 39624900) and LLC UTILVTORPROM (EDRPOU 39447017), which received licenses, suddenly turned out to be subsidiaries of the same offshore company ESTRO LTD (103 Sham Tong Plaza, Victoria, Seychelles), were located at the same address – and did not have any equipment for waste processing! In fact, some abandoned industrial site is located at this address. And how did they get the licenses? You need to ask the head of the Ministry of Ecology! Is it any wonder that “garbage apocalypses” like the one in Lviv happen in Ukraine! But Ostap Semerak responds with silence even to direct accusations from journalists and entrepreneurs.
The second area of development of Ostap Semerak’s “ecological business” was lobbying for the lifting of the moratorium on the export of round timber. At the same time, in the summer of 2016, Semerak advocated the introduction of strict measures against the spontaneous felling of trees “for firewood” by villagers and artisans, and in November he supported the industrial export of timber to Europe. Sources reported that the interests of the minister are driven not only by the licenses that he will issue to large logging companies, but also by the promised “gratitude” of European buyers.
Well, the third very promising direction was geology, because the full name of Semerak’s department is the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources! And speaking of natural resources, we immediately remember his people, placed in high positions in the Ministry of Energy and the gas sector. At the same time, Semerak is accused of completely destroying geological services: he promised to reform them and reduce costs by 10%, but in fact he cut them by 32% and simply fired most of the specialists. What is happening can be seen in the example of the state enterprise “Kirovgeologiya”, where its new boss Vitaly Nelga actually bankrupted the enterprise and now a developer is going to buy out the territory it occupies – to build a shopping center there. At the same time, Semerak’s appointee Nelga had previously brought “Poltavaneftegasgeologiya” to bankruptcy! According to the dismissed specialists, another six months of such reforms – and in Ukraine there will be no one to explore the subsoil, or even to simply keep the information about underground resources at the disposal of the state. And it is possible that this trend is part of some large-scale dark plan.
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Info
Subscribe to our channels in Telegram, Facebook, CONT, VK And Yandex Zen — only dossiers, biographies and dirt on Ukrainian officials, businessmen, politicians from the section CRYPT!
