ODESA, Ukraine — It’s apparently legal, a lawyer said, when asked about Odesa city council member Maryna Lozovenko’s ability to get rich from a municipal budget that she is elected to oversee.
“In theory, the deputy (city council member) cannot influence the results of the tender. However, making this happen is quite possible, although not as easy to prove,” says Odesa lawyer Yulia Gavrilyuk. “We perfectly understand that people working in this industry have many connections. When the paperwork of a familiar person comes in, they certainly prefer it above all else.
And Lozovenko, whose private company consistently wins lucrative tenders from the budget serving 1 million residents of the Black Sea city, doesn’t see any conflict of interest in the situation.
“If there is a conflict of interest, I declare that there is a conflict of interest,” Lozovenko said. “Look at the tenders the company has won before the end of my term – the company is growing, that’s why we win tenders. We have our own asphalt and concrete factory in order to stay winning.”
Local government deputies do not receive salaries, so they have to earn money somehow.
Since the beginning of 2020 alone, Pik-Stroy company, which belongs to Lozovenko, a party member of Doviriai Dilam — to which Odesa Mayor Gennady Trukhanov also belongs — has won tenders for almost Hr 11 million, or $397,000, for public works projects, including road reconstruction.
In addition, Lozovenko herself is a member of the road management commission.
Odesa City Council member Maryna Lozovenko
Sidewalks and streets for several million
One of the recent tenders that Pik-Stroy won was the renovation of sidewalks at 30 Akademichna St. The company received almost Hr 3 million, or $108,000 for this reconstruction.
Pik-Stroy” will be renovating two more streets in Lozovenko’s district. The company won tenders for the repair of Nikitina and Krushelnitskaya streets as well. The total amount of their contracts has accumulated Hr 6 million.
Multimillion-dollar city contracts
In 2019, Lozovenko’s company earned more than UAH 45 million, $1.6 million During this year, Pik-Stroy performed key repairs in Odesa.
One of the most expensive repairs took place in Vorontsovsky Lane – except none of the work had anything to do with building facades, the company only constructed sidewalks and a roadway. This cost the city UAH 22.5 million.
In 2018, the Pik-Stroy firm undertook the renovation of the Pobeda arboretum. The company earned Hr 33 million. They used this amount of money to change benches, create lighting, and update the pedestrian pathways. Another company, called LLC DRSU-COM has earned an additional Hr 450,000, which is also associated with Lozovenko, according to a declaration, she works as a finance director there. The company has used this money to obtain the necessary documentation for reconstruction.
In 2016, Lozovenko’s firm won an expensive contract – the renovation of Tiraspolskaya Square, for which the city budget had paid Hr 42 million.
Expensive bike paths
For more than Hr 4.5 million, Lozovenko’s company made bike paths on Krasnova street. However, it was obvious that there wasn’t enough money to fulfill all the project requirements, which caused an interruption in the building process. The only thing leading to the idea that there’s a lane for cyclists is a sign.
Ksenia Sytinska is a journalist with Channel 7 Odesa and Daryna Sarhan is a translation editor. The TV station is owned by the KADORR Group, which also publishes the Kyiv Post.
