The Southern Office of the State Audit Service conducted an audit of the financial and economic activities of the Tuzly Estuaries National Park. The audit materials were sent to the territorial office of the State Bureau of Investigation located in Mykolaiv. This was reported by the Southern Office of the State Audit Service in response to a request from UNN.
Details
The order to conduct the audit was issued on April 23, 2024. The auditors checked the financial and economic activities of the national park for the period from January 01, 2020 to May 31, 2024.
On August 29, 2024, the management of the national park received the audit report from the auditors and expressed their objections. However, the State Audit Service refuted them and sent the audit materials to the SBI.
The audit materials were added to the criminal proceedings No. 12024168240000026, opened in April this year (Article 351(1) of the Criminal Code).
The Tuzly Estuaries National Park is famous not only for its unique nature, but also for constant scandals with its "permanent" management. For many years, the national park has been run by the same people, with the prefix of acting managers, because the Ministry of Ecology has not appointed an open competition. According to unverified information, the national park's management has family ties to officials from the Prosecutor General's Office. In particular, local activist and journalist Oksana Pidnebesna hints that the management of the national park is "covered" by Maksym Popov, an employee of the Prosecutor General's Office.
This is probably the reason why the Ministry of Ecology ignores the constant scandals and problems in the national park. In particular, mass poaching, which is detected by law enforcement almost every month. This indicates that the 45 employees of the national park, on whom the state spends about UAH 5 million annually, cannot cope with their main task - nature protection.
Neighboring communities and local authorities are also demanding the dismissal of the national park's management, emphasizing the inefficiency of natural resource management.