In the OFC bank money from the sewage treatment plants of Sevastopol

The Arbitration Court of Sevastopol satisfied the claim of the prosecutor's office on the recognition of these financial flows as illegal.
04.09.2018
Kommersant
Origin source
The government of Sevastopol was at the center of a loud scandal because of violations of the law in financing the construction of sewage treatment facilities "Southern" worth 6.5 billion rubles. As the arbitration court of Sevastopol admitted on the suit of the prosecutor's office, the customer illegally withdrew almost a third of this sum (2.05 billion rubles) from the treasury support and transferred to the account of the contractor JSC NPP "Biotekhprogress" in the bank deprived of the license of OFC, co-owner of which was a lawyer Nikolai Egorov, a classmate of Vladimir Putin. The prosecutor's office claims that the situation led to "a loss of state control over the use of budgetary funds, the inability to use them for the purposes of implementing the contract and the threat of disrupting the federal target program" (FTP) development of Sevastopol and the Crimea.

At the disposal of "Kommersant" was the answer of the Sevastopol Prosecutor's Office to the appeal of the "System Resource" law firm, which at the end of last year proved to FAS the illegality of the draft state contract worth 6.5 billion rubles. for the construction of sewage treatment plants "Southern", which the authorities of Sevastopol were going to conclude with a single participant in the auction - the St. Petersburg contractor Biotechprogress. FAS demanded that in accordance with the federal legislation, compulsory treasury support should be provided for in advance of the contract. This was the only instruction that the antimonopoly authority issued to the customer - the Civil Aviation Administration of Sevastopol, dismissing numerous other complaints (one of the applicants, in particular, was FSUE "Ateks"). The contract was concluded in the FAS revised version on December 25, 2017, but on December 26 the condition of treasury support was excluded by an additional agreement between the customer and the contractor, to which the Sevastopol authorities transferred an advance of 2.055 billion rubles. to an account with an OFC bank. This bank, 25% of which belonged to Vladimir Putin's classmate, the co-founder of the EPAM advocacy bureau, Nikolai Egorov, was declared problematic in March, and in April he was deprived of the license: the funds placed in it were blocked and included in the bankruptcy lot, and the account holder was assigned to the third stage creditors.

On May 7, 2018, the head of Sistemy Resurs LLC (specializing in the legal support of public procurements) Alexey Nozhkin informed the Prosecutor General's Office and the FAS that the contractor and the construction contractor "only created the appearance of fulfilling FAS requirements", as a result "it was not possible to prevent damage to the budget" . Moreover, the bank guarantee to secure the contractor's obligations was issued to him on the eve of the contract signing by the same OFC bank, where the advance is frozen. Mr. Nozhkin also drew the attention of the prosecutor's office that a copy of the bank guarantee originally placed in the Unified Information System (EIS) of procurement, in his opinion, contains signs of fictitiousness, and the current version of the document appeared in the EIS only on the eve of transferring the advance to the bank. In any case, to recover from this guarantee means in case of claims to the contractor of the Sevastopol authorities because of the recall of the bank license will no longer be able.

The Prosecutor General's Office redirected the complaint to the Prosecutor's Office of Sevastopol, whose leadership, we recall, was replaced in early July because of the conflict between former head of the department Igor Shevchenko and Governor Dmitry Ovsyannikov. From the response to the "System resource" last week, it follows that on the eve of Mr. Shevchenko's resignation on the results of the prosecutor's inspection of the SS of the SKR on Sevastopol on June 25, a criminal case was opened based on the elements of the offense under item "c" of Part 3. Art. 286 of the Criminal Code (exceeding official authority with causing grave consequences), and the prosecutor's office on June 26 filed a lawsuit in the Sevastopol NP with the construction client about the invalidity of the additional agreement to the contract. The customer's actions led to "a loss of state control over the expenditure of budgetary funds, the inability to use them for the purposes of implementing the contract and the threat of disrupting the federal targeted program," the prosecutor's office believes. In July, the former head of the SCU, Alexander Antyufeev, was arrested and signed a contract change on behalf of the government of Sevastopol. The letter of the Prosecutor's Office does not mention the verification of the bank guarantee.

Meanwhile, the AU of Sevastopol in mid-August has already canceled the agreement on the refusal of treasury escorts, which, according to Mr. Nozhkin, gives grounds to the prosecutor's office to demand from the authorities of Sevastopol refund of the undeveloped advance to the account of the contractor in the federal treasury. The situation is aggravated by a judicial conflict between the customer and the contractor: on July 23, the Sevastopol authorities terminated the contract with Biotechprogress, accusing him of delaying the execution of work for four months. At the same time it turned out that of 2.05 billion rubles. the contractor has more than half a year mastered only 17 million rubles. At the same time, the company challenged the termination of the contract in the AU and secured interim measures of its suit, allowing it to continue working until the dispute is resolved.

The meeting of the AU is scheduled for September 11, while the construction supervisory deputy governor of Sevastopol, Vladimir Bazarov, told Kommersant that "from the point of view of expediency," the city government is interested in the contract being continued by Biotechprogress. The replacement of the contractor, according to the vice-governor, will increase the deadline for the delivery of the facility for at least six months. In addition, upon termination of the contract, the funds blocked by the OFK bank "will be lost," acknowledged Mr. Bazarov. According to him, Biotechprogress has already approved a loan for 500 million rubles, and when the contractor "physically receive this money", the situation will "seriously change" for the better. This means that the authorities of Sevastopol are ready to lose the dispute with the contractor in order not to bear responsibility for the lost funds. On the question of how and on whose initiative the additional agreement was signed to the contract that canceled the treasury support, Vladimir Bazarov said that law enforcement agencies would "sort it out." The head of Biotechprogress, Denis Petrov, was not available for comment.

The prosecutor's office in August won another dispute in the city of the city with the same SCU, proving the illegality of the supplementary agreement to the contract with Otmet LLC for the design of the gas boiler house. It unlawfully released the contractor from payment of the project in Glavgosexpertiza (the cost was incurred by the customer) - it was signed by another head of the SCU. It should be noted that at the end of July it was decided to increase the financing of the federal target program for the development of the Crimea and Sevastopol, worth 800 billion rubles, at least 37 billion rubles. At a meeting with Dmitry Medvedev, it was said that the expansion of the program is taking place against the backdrop of annual disruptions in the timing of the FTP, and Sevastopol has so far mastered only 5% of funds allocated for this year.

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