03.10.2024 Agro

Corridor for evaders. How Ukrainian ministries trade in reservations for mobilization

The Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food has opened a new corridor for those who do not want to be mobilized.

The scheme is quite simple and familiar: The Ministry issues an order granting a company the status of a critical enterprise, and accordingly, its employees automatically receive grounds for reservation. Later, the management of the legal entity creates schemes for personal enrichment: they employ men with military service, provide them with reservations with the possibility of further border crossing, and receive monetary rewards.

Currently, the number of cases of similar frauds is proportionally increasing, while leading ministries and their officials line their own pockets.

One of the likely examples of the described scheme “in action” may be the issuance of the Order of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy dated 27.02.2024 No. 577 “On Confirmation of the Status of Cofco Agri Resources Ukraine LLC as Critical for the Functioning of the Economy and Ensuring the Life of the Population in a Special Period”.

As we noted earlier, Cofco Agri Resources Ukraine is a subsidiary of the Chinese national grain and oilseed company Cofco. The latter is one of the state-owned holding companies in the Chinese food industry and the country’s largest food producer.

That is, while China, according to foreign publications, supplies spare parts for Russian military equipment, its structures are quietly operating in Ukraine? Moreover, they receive the status of critical infrastructure, reservation and protection from the ministries and law enforcement agencies? Double standards, or what?

Cofco owns a number of facilities in Ukraine, including those located in the occupied cities. For example, the Satellite plant is located in the industrial zone of Mariupol and, according to various sources, continues to operate.

In its activities, Cofco continues to implement fraudulent schemes, artificially inflating the true volumes of agricultural production and supply. And all payments are made exclusively in cash in order to further distort the data in the official records and to circumvent the Ukrainian tax system as much as possible.

Does this contribute to Ukraine’s economic strengthening in today’s environment? And does the corporation really support our country and can it be considered critical?

In order to confirm or refute the information about Cofco’s use as a corridor for tax evaders, we sent an information request to the list of authorities that, according to the law, should have responded within 5 days.

In the document, we asked to provide the grounds for such a decision of the Minister, the number of booked persons at the enterprise, information on crossing such borders on the grounds of having “reservation”, etc. However, as expected, we did not receive the requested information.

Therefore, this time we are writing and filing complaints, including to law enforcement, to force the controllers to provide real evidence and prerequisites for this decision. We will find out very soon whether the silence of the Ministries, the DIA, the State Border Guard Service, the RTCC, and the JV is connected with the concealment of crimes.

However, it is already known that the main task of Cofco in Ukraine is not to support the economy, develop the agricultural sector, or provide food. Its mission seems to be to exert pressure and attempts to “shut up” and stop covering and publishing the activities of Cofco Agri Resources Ukraine. After all, how else can we explain the series of lawsuits that the corporation’s lawyers have been filing against us to no avail.

Earlier, we wrote about how Cofco lost the case for the protection of honor, dignity and business reputation twice. A little later, having been defeated in the Kharkiv courts, they decided to put pressure on us again. However, this time they filed a lawsuit in the Kyiv Commercial Court.

This raises questions about the principle of determining the jurisdiction of the case. After all, according to the provisions of the Commercial Procedure Code, as a general rule, claims against a legal entity are filed at its declared location. So why did they choose the Kyiv court, if the NGO Non-Stop is registered in Kharkiv?

Doesn’t it look like another step to put pressure on us and is it not a procedural abuse?

In addition, Cofco continues to put pressure on the head of the NGO Non-Stop, who is also a lawyer. They have already filed three complaints with the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of the Bar. Each time, on behalf of different structures of the corporation. They complained about the lawyer’s unsatisfactory behavior and violations of the law. However, we would like to remind you that a lawyer and the head of an NGO are two different entities that are independent of each other and whose activities do not overlap at all.

As we can see, Cofco does not abandon its goal of silencing us and not covering shady schemes. However, so far, they have not succeeded in realizing this. In any case, we will continue our activities. We are confident that law enforcement agencies and conscious government officials will support us. This opinion is based on the list of criminal proceedings initiated based on our materials:

The Prosecutor General’s Office has entered information into the URPTI under the following numbers: 42023000000001856 – part 1 of Art. 110-2; 42023000000001857 – part 1 of Art. 111-2; 42023000000001858 – part 1 of Art. 114; 42023000000001859 – part 1 of Art. 190; 42023000000001860 – part 1 of Art. 369; 42023000000001861 – Art. 219; 42023000000001862 – part 1 of Art. 212; 42023000000001863 – part 1 of Art. 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine;

On November 02, 2023,the Investigation Department of the Security Service of Ukraine in Zaporizhzhia region registered the case in the URPTI under No. 22023080000001789 with the legal qualification: Part 1 of Article 366 of the Criminal Code.

On 07.11.2023,the Dnipro Regional Prosecutor ‘s Office registered the information in the URPTI under No. 42023040000000579 with the legal qualification: Part 1 of Art. 212, Part 1 of Art. 209 of the Criminal Code, etc.

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