Architect of schemes: How Olena Shulyak combines urban planning reform with her family’s business interests

Architect of schemes: How Olena Shulyak combines urban planning reform with her family’s business interests

Olena Shulyak — people’s deputy from «Servant of the People», head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Issues of State Power Organization, Local Self-Government, Regional Development and Urban Planning, as well as head of the coordination council under the president on urban planning issues. It is through this committee that key decisions pass that determine the rules of operation of Ukraine’s construction market.

Shulyak became one of the main co-authors of bills No. 5655 and No. 9664, which were criticized for creating mechanisms for transferring state and communal land for development through easements without a full competitive procedure. Formally, it was about «simplification» of processes; in fact, it was about the possibility of transferring land for development without open competitions.

Against this background, the business ties of the Shulyak family in the construction sector are of particular interest.

According to declarations, the deputy’s husband, Oleksandr Shulyak, uses a BMW X6 car owned by Vadym Ishchenko. The car is provided to him free of charge. However, the connection between Shulyak and Ishchenko is not limited to this. Oleksandr Shulyak and Vadym Ishchenko were co-founders of LLC «Mikrokredyt». In addition, Oleksandr Shulyak was the founder of LLC «NGI GROUP», and later transferred his share to Viktoriia Rohach — owner of ChAT «ISA-UNION», where Vadym Ishchenko was the director. Oleksandr Shulyak’s accounts are also held at the «3/4» bank, which belongs to Ishchenko. The media have written about the connection between Shulyak and Ishchenko, as well as the «3/4» bank, in the context of a criminal proceeding by the ESBU regarding money laundering.

Ishchenko is also associated with a number of companies linked to the construction sector: «Konstruktsii i Budivnytstvo», «RZ Park», «Hihakor», and other structures. In some of them, Oleksandr Poymanov appears among the co-owners — a person whose surname is linked to a scandal surrounding the state-owned «Ukrbud» and the CLAP project — a «smart home» system on whose development «Ukrbud» spent about 7 million dollars. Despite the invested funds, a full-fledged product never materialized.

Additional interest arises from the fact that during the CLAP development period, Oleksandr Poymanov’s father, Serhiy Poymanov, headed the board of «Ukrbud». After the corporation’s bankruptcy and criminal cases involving Maksym Mykytas, the story of the CLAP project and the spent millions essentially disappeared from the public agenda.

As a result, a system has formed around the construction sector in which legislative initiatives, major developers, former «Ukrbud» structures, and people from the inner circle of profile officials are closely interconnected.

The story of Olena Shulyak and Vadym Ishchenko is an example of how political influence on the construction market intersects with the private interests of family and partners. When the head of the profile committee participates in shaping the rules for land distribution and construction regulation, and her closest associates are linked to companies and businessmen in the construction sector, questions arise not only about individual decisions but about the entire system, in which state regulation and private interest effectively exist within a single vertical.