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On his Telegram page, Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi spoke on October 4 about the sad consequences of the Russian attack on the city that took place a month earlier. There are still 4 injured in the hospital: two in moderate condition, and two in serious condition.
The mayor also reported on the destruction in the city: 189 buildings were damaged, including 19 architectural monuments. Various domestic and foreign organizations are helping the city, and the total amount of financial support is approximately UAH 100 million.
On October 2, Lviv’s Standing Committee on Finance and Budget Planning met to consider dozens of issues important and not so important to the local community.
The first item on the agenda was a request from Helena Payonkevych, Director of the Legal Department, to increase budget allocations for court fees. For the last three months of 2024, Payonkevych requested another 900 thousand hryvnias, or an average of 100 thousand hryvnias per month. The Lviv City Council agreed to meet Payonkevych’s financial needs.
Lviv residents work, pay taxes to the city treasury, and use their taxes to pay official Payonkevych a monthly European salary of 1, 835 euros, as well as 100,000 budget hryvnias for the legal department to sue the same Lviv residents.
The parliamentary commission considered an appeal from the head of the Frankivsk district administration, Oksana Prydrazhda, to allocate funds from the reserve fund to restore destroyed houses.
The administration asked for funds for urgent emergency restoration work to remove the structural elements of residential buildings from the emergency state… Further, they indicated the numbers of the destroyed houses and the housing and communal services districts in which they were located. Only in one case, regarding the house No. 44 on Yevhen Konovalets Street, it was said that funds were needed: “For the inspection and preparation of technical conclusions for urgent emergency repair work to remove the structural elements of the residential building from the emergency state”. UAH 266,552.00 was requested for the technical inspection of the building and preparation of technical reports on the repairs. The deputies agreed.
It is clear that the cost of a technical inspection of a building and the preparation of technical conclusions is included in the total cost of building repairs, so the public does not know the true cost of these works, which contributes to financial manipulation or even corruption.
However, there is nothing secret that does not come to light. Thanks to the simple-minded Ihor Savka, the head of the Zaliznychnyi District Administration, the public learned a lot of interesting things.
The official frankly admitted to the parliamentary commission that he had invited private technical experts who had inspected and issued technical reports for 326,804 UAH to restore the destroyed houses in the Zaliznychnyi district. The inspection of one house cost UAH 22,484.00; the inspection of 14 houses cost UAH 42,000 (UAH 3,000 for each); the inspection of 20 houses cost UAH 262,320 (UAH 13,116.00 for each).
These figures stunned Natalia Shelestak, the head of the financial commission, or “stressed her out,” as she put it. The deputies present could not understand why the same figure was charged for the technical examination of each house. The houses were damaged differently, and it takes different time to examine them, but the fee for the building examination is the same.
Four times in a row, Natalia Shelestak asked Ihor Savka what the reason was. And four times Ihor Savka answered: “Because we need to start the repair process.” Driven to emotional despair, Shelestak promised to send the calculations of the Zaliznychnyi District Administration to the place where all the amounts would be recalculated scrupulously, and then Ihor Savka would be asked for an explanation. Real explanations, not frozen ones.
It is also unclear from this deputy meeting whether Ihor Savka is authorized by the Lviv City Council (the deputies, not the mayor’s administration, which mimics deputies) to hire private individuals for technical expertise, when there are enough specialists in Andriy Sadovyi’s office who receive a considerable salary and are obliged to work for it. Especially at such a tragic time for Lviv.
After all, back in 2006, Andriy Sadovyi separated from the region, created his own Lviv Intercity Bureau of Technical Inventory and located it at 15 Halytska Square, closer to his cousin. The regional BTI on Lypynskoho Street did not disappear either. If Maksym Zinoviyovych had sincerely appealed to the region, he would not have refused Andriy Ivanovych, and would have provided his technical experts to inspect the damaged Lviv property.
Can the head of the city’s BTI, Yuriy Telipsky, and his subordinates perform technical expertise of buildings and determine the scope of repair work? Not only can they, but they are obliged to do so. The territorial community pays Telipskyi 60,000 hryvnias a month, and has also created an opportunity for him to earn 3,580 hryvnias a month on a part-time basis.
Anton Kolomeytsev and his subordinates are definitely professionally qualified to inspect destroyed buildings, because that’s what they studied for. Moreover, Kolomeitsev regularly “grazes” in the budget commission. For the taxes of Lviv residents, he needs some items, then unknown materials, then unspecified equipment, then unmarked inventory.
Doesn’t Orest Tymchyshyn, Department of Housing, have the right specialists? Vladyslav Ivanov, Department of Housing, is not able to inspect the damaged buildings? Ivan Matkivsky, Department of Capital Construction, isn’t he a specialized organization to determine the extent of residential damage?
If the city has so many specialized structures, if the City Hall has almost half the number of employees of the former Electron plant, why do they need to hire private contractors? We assume, but we do not know for sure, that private technical experts are needed to lure money from the city treasury and distribute it illegally among private individuals and unscrupulous officials.
In addition, if foreign and domestic organizations send 100 million hryvnias for Lviv, as Andriy Sadovyi claims, then why pull more funds from the budget to restore the housing structure, including 327 thousand budget hryvnias for technical examination of damaged houses in the Zaliznychnyi district? These 100 million hryvnias of sponsorship, as well as another 30 million from the regional and city budgets, if they are not stolen and construction materials are purchased at market prices, and not four times more expensive, will be enough to restore or repair the Lviv housing stock. Moreover, on October 8, the mayor boasted of another million hryvnias in sponsorship.
We will be watching how Andriy Sadovyi and his entourage will personally dispose of these millions, will they be able to overcome the temptation of misuse of funds? Will they be able to overcome the impulses of the heavenly Gaspid to profit from people’s grief? Because the residents of some of the destroyed houses have been informed by officials that there is not enough money for everyone and everything. And from whom can mid-level officials receive such reliable financial information? Who is the manager of the millions of sponsorships they have received?
Yaroslav Levkiv, for LEOPOLIS NEWS
