Half a million in kickbacks without witnesses: the hospital for which the ultrasound machine was purchased was excluded from the case of MP Kuzminykh

Half a million in kickbacks without witnesses: the hospital for which the ultrasound machine was purchased was excluded from the case of MP Kuzminykh

The hospital in the Zhytomyr region, for which an ultrasound machine was purchased, was not even involved as witnesses in the case of MP Kuzminykh’s half-million "kickback."

Three years without a verdict: the criminal case against MP Serhiy Kuzminykh has turned into a lengthy judicial process with elements of farce. Although the NABU detained the deputy at the end of January 2022 for receiving 558 thousand hryvnias of a possible "kickback" for a tender for the supply of an ultrasound machine. But the very next day, the case was reclassified from the article on bribery to the article on abuse of influence. And the Zhytomyr medical facility, for which the expensive equipment was purchased, remained outside the scope of the investigation.

Why is the ordering hospital not featured in Kuzminykh’s case? And how is the process progressing in general? In a new video material, investigative journalist StopCor Igor Khmuryi reported.

The deputy director of the hospital, Volodymyr Malyk, confirmed that the medical facility is not a participant in the proceedings:

"Neither the director nor our hospital is involved in this case. We are not even featured as witnesses. What happened next with this procurement, how it was agreed upon — it was not our business, we did not participate in it."

However, an analysis of the tender documents raises questions about the procurement procedure. The hospital itself was the customer for the ultrasound device, and the contact person was the deputy director for economic issues, Svitlana Marenych, who still holds this position.

The tender was won by the company "Lamberg INC" with a proposal of 1 million 860 thousand hryvnias. At the same time, the company "Oriyentyr Status" was ready to supply a similar device almost 40% cheaper, but their application was rejected due to the inability to "justify the abnormally low price of the tender offer."

"Despite offering the lowest price, another company won. We didn’t even ask for clarifications back then, because we understood something was wrong," commented the director of "Oriyentyr Status" LLC to the publication Hromadske.

An interesting fact is the appointment of the current director of the hospital, Igor Kukharyuk, on August 15, 2019, immediately after Kuzminykh was elected as an MP. Kukharyuk himself was born in the village of Volosivka, Chudniv district, which is the central part of the MP’s electoral district.

Meanwhile, the deputy’s defense actively uses procedural errors of the investigation to weaken the case. In particular, the lawyers claim that the article on bribery was allegedly deliberately used to obtain the right for covert investigative actions.

According to last year’s research, the High Anti-Corruption Court released 80 defendants due to the statute of limitations, with the article under which Kuzminykh is being tried ranking fourth in terms of frequency of such releases.