28.08.2024 Money laundering

How does the government put pressure on Ukrainians and businesses by raising taxes and military duty for all categories?

The Verkhovna Rada has finally approved tax innovations for Ukrainians. It is aboutincreasing the military tax to 5% and introducing it for individual entrepreneurs. Hetmantsev, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy, said that the military tax will be directed through a special fund exclusively to finance the Armed Forces. But will absolutely all the money be spent on the needs of the army? And shouldn’t efforts be directed first and foremost at combating the flourishing conversion centers through which the budget is successfully withdrawn, and the schemes of VAT fraud and minimization that fuel smuggling?

Or would it be better if the entire existing business, which is already suffering from the realities of war and blackouts, went completely into the shadows?

Against this background, the situation when the National Bank of Ukraine annually pays millions of hryvnias to a company involved in financial fraud, manipulation of tenders, and bribes to banks looks particularly cynical .

The company in question is Brig Retail, to which the NBU annually pays more than UAH 5 million for maintenance of the SAP program for business process optimization.

“Brig Retail has been active since 2006. Its annual profit based on the sale of automated management systems to large companies amounts to tens of millions. But in 2020, the situation changed, and its revenue dropped to zero.

The fact is that Brig Retail has a long history of scandals. For example, the company is involved in criminal case No. 752/12659/18. The materials of the latter revealed that Brig Retail, in collusion with the managers of Ukrsibbank, supplied its goods at inflated prices for a kickback of 10-15%.

Later, the Antimonopoly Committee fined Brig Retail more than UAH 3.2 million for “anticompetitive concerted actions during public procurement of SAP software.” It also banned the company from participating in public procurement tenders for three years.

That’s why the owner of Brig Retail, Oleg Pozdnyakov, created a virtually identical Brig Retail (without a hyphen in the name) in 2020. The company with the same owner and name provides the same services: it advises on automation and sells SAP products. But unlike Brig Retail, Brig Retail is not on the AMCU’s blacklist, has not been involved in a kickback case, and allegedly has a “clean reputation” and thus can participate in public procurement (which it successfully does).

The new version of Brig Retail has already received tenders worth UAH 34.6 million, including UAH 29.3 million from the National Bank. For example, in 2023 alone, the NBU paid the company UAH 5.2 million for SAP support, and in 2022, Brig Retail received UAH 5.9 million for the same service.

In April last year, the National Bank even held a tender with Brig Retail as the only participant, thus deliberately giving millions to the latter for the SAP system for the mint. In addition, the state institution continues to pay UAH 5 million annually for subscription services, despite the criminal record of its predecessor company.

According to the media: “Brig Retail used to pay kickbacks of up to 15%. If this is true, the National Bank’s employees could have already “earned” about UAH 4.3 million on such a kickback. However, then the NBU budget (which is public money) would have lost many times more: due to inflated prices and the purchase of unnecessary services.”

So maybe the first step is to revise the policies of state institutions? And only after that, to dramatically increase taxes and fees, creating an additional financial burden on Ukrainians?

The legal department of Non-Stop sent materials to law enforcement agencies to stop the waste of the budget and stop the cooperation of Brig Retail with the NBU. As a result of consideration of the following: Holosiivskyi District Prosecutor’s Office of Kyiv registered the information in the URPTI under No. 42024102010000045, part 3 of Article 15, part 4 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, Pechersk District Prosecutor’s Office of Kyiv – 42024102060000073 under part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code, and the Office of the Prosecutor General – 42024000000000685, Article 191, part 5 of the Criminal Code.

So when to expect inspections and contract termination?

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