State Aviation Administration spent 666,000 hryvnias on bonuses for management without justification

State Aviation Administration spent 666,000 hryvnias on bonuses for management without justification

Despite the failure of the State Aviation Administration’s leadership to fulfill some tasks and responsibilities, bonuses for intensity were awarded in the amount of 250-500% of the salary, which led to inefficient use of 666.3 thousand hryvnias of budget funds.

This is evidenced by the audit data conducted by the Accounting Chamber for the years 2021-2023.

The planned state budget expenditures for the State Aviation Administration during the 2021-2022 years were envisaged only from the special fund according to the Program and in amounts that constituted 80% of the forecasted annual revenue from state fees to the Special Aviation Fund, namely 332 million UAH and 261 million UAH, respectively. However, the defined need for funds from the special fund of the Program in these periods was not sufficiently justified and detailed. Because of these planning shortcomings, unused funds remained annually, amounting to 157.66 million UAH or 47.5% of the approved allocations at the end of 2021, and 66 million UAH or 25.4% of the approved allocations at the end of 2022.

The State Aviation Administration spent 12.6 million UAH of state budget funds in 2021-2022 on updating and technical support of the Unified information system (UIS), which did not pass the state expert evaluation of the comprehensive information protection system. The UIS of the State Aviation Administration was not modernized, the goal for which funds amounting to 12 million UAH were used was not achieved at the time of the audit, meaning the funds were used ineffectively.

Since 2008, the State Aviation Administration has been using the computer program "Megapolis. Web Registry," which serves as a platform for the creation of the UIS. The program was developed by LLC "Softline IT," which also provided development and technical support services based on annual contracts. It should be noted that a representative of the Ministry of Digital Transformation was involved in the audit to provide a professional assessment of the effectiveness of the software products and services acquired by the State Aviation Administration, and an expert opinion was provided based on the conducted procedures.

The State Aviation Administration reached out to LLC "Softline IT" to provide a proposal regarding optimal ways to modernize the UIS. Eleven days later, the company reported that it had updated versions of the computer programs "Megapolis. Web Registry" 2.0-X64 and "Aviation Transport" 2.0-X64, which are derivative products of "Megapolis. Web Registry" and "Aviation Transport" and contain extended functionality.

The State Aviation Administration approached the Scientific Research Center to obtain an expert opinion on the cost of the software products and concluded an agreement, which provided the Economic Opinion determining the market value of "Megapolis. Web Registry" 2.0-X64 – 9 million UAH, "Aviation Transport" 2.0-X64 – 5 million UAH.

Section 2 "Research" of the Economic Opinion contains a warning that "...All information provided by the Customer was accepted as reliable. Experts did not conduct an audit or other verification of the provided information...". Thus, the Economic Opinion regarding the price determination is based on data provided by an interested party—the developer of the products LLC "Softline IT," namely on the information (certificates) regarding labor costs (1657 man-months) for the creation of the two software products.