The Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defence and Intelligence seeks to declassify part of the Defence Ministry's procurement
On January 23, the Rada's Defence Committee met because of the food procurement scandal. As a result, the people's deputies decided to increase procurement transparency and visit all the companies supplying the Ministry with food.
The Committee adopted three resolutions:
- To declassify procurement not directly relating to the defence sector. To do this, the committee's assistants are developing a separate draft law.
- To increase the committee's control over procurement and report possible abuses. Such authority is also vested in the committee during peacetime, but people's deputies abandoned them at the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
- To visit enterprises involved in food supply to the army and check their production and warehouses.
On January 21, Dzerkalo Tyzhnia published an article by Yurii Nikonov, which reports the alleged food overpricing.
The media published a food procurement contract and an appendix containing a catalogue of products to be purchased and their prices. For example, the document showed that the Ministry of Defence bought eggs at 17 hryvnias per piece, even though the market price for eggs ranges between 6 and 10 hryvnias.
Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov denied this and explained the high price of eggs as a technical error. Allegedly, it was discovered in December 2022 and corrected then. The supplier suspended the employee who made this mistake.
At the same time, Reznikov promised to be as open as possible and provide all the necessary information to the committee. He even suggested creating a parliamentary provisional investigative commission.
Photo: RFE | RL
