Top official of Defense Ministry Zhumadilov clears market of food for AFU under "circle of the chosen ones" - Bereza

Officials of the Ministry of Defense, in particular the director of the "Agency for procurement in the field of defense" (SE "State rear operator") Arsen Zhumadilov, decided to give the market of food supplies for the army to specific companies.

Member of Parliament of the 8th convocation Boryslav Bereza wrote about this on Facebook.

"The Ministry of Defense has already announced billion-hryvnia tenders with new qualification conditions for suppliers. These conditions are written in such a way that only large retail chains can fulfill them, and no one else. Even the volume of tenders testifies to the fact that it is divided "on the knee" - the value of the lots "floats" from UAH 3 billion to UAH 48 million. Although earlier they were distributed approximately equally," Bereza said.

He called the prescribed conditions "discriminatory for a business that already has experience and well-established logistics chains throughout the country." In addition, the Zhumadilov’s Agency gives future winners the opportunity to earn 30% more, because the price of a soldier's meal service increases from UAH 107 to UAH 137 per day.

"Plus the price of delivery, which now also has to be paid by the state. Previously, it was the responsibility of the supplier. More than 30 million per day on level ground is a good corruption rent," Bereza explained.

According to the ex-MP, the terms of the contracts now contain a number of requirements that can only be fulfilled by a select few. For example, a potential supplier must have 25 warehouses in one region. It is also required to "provide an extract from the accounting system, which contains at least 400 different nomenclature items of food products."

"This is a flagrant case from the point of view of legislation - the concept of "accounting system" does not exist in the normative acts at all. That is, in this way, Zhumadilov and the company actually registered for themselves the right to personally determine the compliance of documents. Scientifically speaking, these are pure "corruption risks". In an unscientific way, it is a "stitched rollback," noted the former MP.

Moreover: according to the new conditions of tenders, potential suppliers can now receive an advance of even 50% (for example, 1.5 billion from a three-billion tender), and disappear with the received billion "credit".

"After all, now the leadership of the Ministry of Defense has decided to remove the norm on mandatory compensation for the cost of undelivered goods. A very convenient story for "solid gentlemen," Bereza summed up.