GENEVA, September 6. /TASS/. A Swiss-based non-governmental organization, the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, has published a report about large-scale corruption schemes in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa, including those related to grain exports, and pointed to the growing involvement of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s office.
The 48-page document says that "obtaining construction permits is virtually impossible in Odesa without resorting to bribery," and the effort to create grain export corridors was accompanied by large-scale extortion of money from exporting companies. According to some sources, a ‘tribute’ of $0.40 per ton of grain was being levied by Ukrainian sanitary officials, while other interviewees reported that traders were being forced to pay 4% to the budget or 3% in cash instead of the official 2% rate.
Also, the organization reported about the "the biggest reported corruption scheme" that that saw 1 million tons of grain exported via "a raft of intermediary (and mostly fictitious) companies." It cost the state 5.2 billion Ukrainian hryvnias (around $141 million at the current exchange rage) in lost taxes, according to the country’s Economic Security Bureau (BEB).
According to the report, after the start of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, "the much-anticipated legislation aimed at reforming" the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and formally disbanding its anti-corruption unit Directorate K "was put on ice <…>, meaning that a grey area now exists over who is responsible for fighting economic crime."
The organization believes that "control of Odessa’s port is the main prize and here the SBU has taken complete control, pushing out the DSR [the Strategic Investigations Department], although the State Fiscal Service and BEB remain present at the port."
"In this context, it is interesting to note the appointment of Oleg Kiper, Kyiv’s head prosecutor, as governor of the Odesa region in late May 2023. Kiper, who had formerly been barred from holding public office, had previously worked as a freelance advisor to Andriy Yermak, then deputy head of the President’s Office. His appointment arguably strengthens the unofficial power vertical between the President’s Office and Odesa, which is already allegedly reshaping corruption dynamics: according to one source, the Presidential Office now fully determines the amount of corruption fees in all areas," Global Initiative wrote.