Umerov: Violations worth more than UAH 10 billion found in the Defense Ministry
Kyiv • UNN
According to the head of the ministry, changes in the Ministry of Defense will be noticeable more and more often
Over the past four months, the Ministry of Defense has uncovered violations worth more than UAH 10 billion that were committed earlier. The Defense Ministry is working closely with law enforcement and special services. This was announced by Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, UNN reports.
Details
The news about detentions and criminal cases that you have been seeing lately are changes. Changes that will be noticeable more and more often. One of the priorities of the Ministry of Defense team is to cleanse the system of dishonest participants, both inside and outside the institution. We are actively working on this - in close cooperation with law enforcement agencies, we are eradicating corruption. The system is resisting, but we will overcome it
According to the official, the Ministry of Defense's internal audit and the renewed General Inspectorate of the Ministry have become fully operational and have already identified many violations - over UAH 10 billion worth of violations committed earlier in the last four months.
Umerov noted that the agency "reacts harshly" to all such cases and works closely with law enforcement and special services, passing on all the necessary information to colleagues.
He reminded that in December, the Security Service of Ukraine, in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense, eliminated a corruption scheme for the purchase of ammunition for the Armed Forces worth almost UAH 1.5 billion.
This is something we can talk about publicly. There will be more news to come. At the same time, we are working to solve the problem systematically: we are implementing a new procurement architecture based on NATO standards
According to him, the Ministry's procurement mechanisms are being restructured so as not to interfere with the continuous supply of weapons and logistics equipment for the Armed Forces.
The official said that from now on, the Defense Ministry "sets the rules of the game, forms the policy, controls the bidding," and procurement is carried out by two special agencies.
The first one, the State Logistics Operator, which will procure logistics assets, including food, clothing, and fuel, has recently been presented. We are rebooting the Defense Procurement Agency, which specializes in weapons procurement
The minister said that there are already concrete results: over four months, the company managed to save approximately UAH 3.5 billion in all rear procurement, which is approximately 20% of the planned procurement amount.
The Defense Ministry also purchased 50,000 sets of women's uniforms, 100,000 electric heaters, 15,000 active headphones for the first time, and negotiations were held with the headphone supplier, which allowed for additional savings of UAH 11.7 million in public funds, the official said.
I am grateful to civil society representatives for being on our side and helping us fight corruption. We have a single goal - to defeat the enemy as soon as possible
