Zaporizhzhia state-owned company withholds costs of building underground schools from journalists

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The Zaporizhia state-owned enterprise "Local Roads of Zaporizhzhia Oblast" has withheld 610 million hryvnias worth of estimates for the construction of underground schools from the Zaporizhzhia Center of Investigations (ZCI) for two months. The company has already dodged three queries.

The ZCI reported this on their website and confirmed to the IMI representative in Zaporizhzhia oblast.

According to the ZCI, 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 a query to the state-owned company "Local Roads of Zaporizhzhia Oblast", asking them for the estimates for these facilities. On July 3, the company replied that uploading the estimate with the other tender documentation was not covered by the current law, and "public organizations (the media outlet was founded by the NGO "Zaporizhzhia Center of Investigations" – Author) are not included in the list of bodies authorized to exercise control in the field of procurement."

The ZCI sent another query with arguments as to why this is incorrect, and received a reply on July 12 saying that the final document with prices will be approved when the agreement is made. Later, the media outlet sent the third query, in which they asked to provide the estimates that were approved as the contracts were made.

According to the ZCI, on July 27, the journalists received an reply saying that due to long-term blackouts, the state-owned company is facing great challenges in their operations and has no time to prepare an answer, so they would postpone responding for 30 business days.

The ZCI head Serhiy Sydorov told the IMI representative that the new deadline has expired and they were trying to get an answer to the query again, but are yet to hear it.

"We have been calling this state-owned company's lawyer who deals with queries since early September, but she does not pick up the phone. Now we are writing a complaint to the Commissioner and while sending queries to the state-owned company 'Local Roads of Zaporizhzhia Oblast' for advance reports on pre-payments for materials and the work of contractors," said Serhiy Sydorov.

In March 2024, the Education and Science Department of the Zaporizhzhia City Council refused to provide Zaporizhia 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.