SBU blows whistle on corrupt lawmakers

November11200820:51

The UNIAN quotes Durdynets as saying that SBU has incriminating evidence of a group of smugglers operating as the Bereha Co. that was covered by a VR lawmaker.

“As soon as we started our investigation we received a petition from Oleh Radkovsky, a BYUT lawmaker, informing us that he is the company’s honorary president and accusing us of following the orders of the company’s rivals,” Durdynets said.

The lawmaker sent a similar complaint to the Prosecutor General’s Office, but the latter gave the SBU a clean bill of health. Moreover, the SBU opened and completed 3 criminal investigations into the company’s transactions, saying they exposed fraudulent deals that have been draining the budget of 400 million a year.

In another criminal investigation, SBU exposed Dmytro Svyatash from the Party of Regions VR faction who submitted to the SBU a list of 14 facilities in the Kharkiv oblast which he is allegedly using to perform his duties as a lawmaker (no taxes were paid for the use of these facilities).

“We have evidence that some of these facilities were used for illegal commercial activity,” the SBU deputy chief said.

In another corruption case, BYUT’s lawmaker Mykhailo Volynets protested to the SBU when the agency started an investigation at the Petrovsky Plant of Mining Engineering into funds embezzlement earmarked to raise safety standards for miners. Volynets demanded that the investigation be stopped, Durdynets noted.

Another VR lawmaker, Yury Karmazin from NUNS, also accused the SBU of political harassment and demanded a stop to its investigation into the personnel policy pursued by the head of Derzhspozhivstandart (cronyism).

As put by Durdynets, the SBU is investigating charges of bribery during the issue of certificates by Derzhstandart during the import of foreign cars.