Zaporizhzhia state-owned company responds to journalists' queries after a backlash

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The Zaporizhzhia state-owned enterprise "Local Roads of Zaporizhzhia Oblast" provided all the documents requested by the Zaporizhzhia Center of Investigations (ZCI) following a public backlash. The media oultlet received the last requested documents on October 15, nearly four months after sending the first query regarding the estimates for the construction of underground schools worth 610 million hryvnias.

The media outlet's head Serhiy Sidorov reported this to the Institute of Mass Information representative in Zaporizhzhia oblast, Natalia Vyhovska.

According to him, they had submitted the first query regarding the estimates for the underground schools in late June. After that, they submitted several more queries without receiving a substantial answer from the company.

"We requested a total of six estimates. We received the first four on September 18 in response to the third wave of our queries to the state-owned company. We received the last two estimates as recently as last week, on October 15," said Serhiy Sidorov.

He added that after the public backlash, when multiple national media outlets reported on the situation with the actual highest cost of the construction of these schools, which was calculated without the estimates, the ZOMA chair Ivan Fedorov even called for a briefing. During the briefing, he said that all documents had been provided to the ZCI. However, the requested documents only arrived at the editorial office two hours after the briefing.

As reported earlier, the Zaporizhzhia state-owned enterprise "Local Roads of Zaporizhzhia Oblast" did not respond to queries from the Zaporizhzhia Center of Investigations (ZCI) for two months. The construction of underground schools in Zaporizhzhia oblast for a total cost of UAH 610 million began in June. However, estimates from the contractors were disclosed on Prozorro. In late June, the ZCI sent the first query to the state-owned company "Local Roads of Zaporizhzhia Oblast", asking them for the estimates for these facilities. However, the company gave no response, and the media outlet spent two months trying to get the information by sending several more queries.

In March 2024, the Education and Science Department of the Zaporizhzhia City Council refused to provide Zaporizhzhia Center of Investigations (ZCI) journalists with information about the the local school meal prices almost tripling. Instead, the journalists were offered to have the Budget Code printed for 1,590 hryvnias.

In August 2023, the Municipal Administration Department of the Zaporizhia City Council refused to provide Zaporizhzhia Center of Investigation journalists with the deeds on the completed road repair work in Zaporizhzhia, which was carried out from early July to late August 2023. The reason for the refusal was that such information could harm national security.