By Burc Eruygur
ISTANBUL (AA) - Ukraine's Defense Ministry has dismissed two officials from their posts due to their involvement in a food procurement scandal, as the country conducted a large-scale government reshuffle following allegations of corruption.
“The Director of the Procurement Department of the Ministry of Defense (Bohdan) Khmelnytskyi and the relevant deputy minister (Vyacheslav) Shapovalov were dismissed,” head of the anti-corruption committee of the Ukrainian parliament Anastasia Radina said in a Facebook post on Tuesday.
Radina said prices in contracts that have not yet entered into force, and are under examination, are different for different suppliers, though some prices differ from market price in "a bad way."
“The (Defense) Ministry explains this by the components of food services, in particular, transport services and the ‘allowance’ for inflation,” Radina further said.
Noting that efforts by the Defense Ministry to correct contracts before they are paid are positive, Radina also said that this is not enough and called for a change to the approach in the procurement of food services.
“The state should not spend time and money on examining prices after concluding agreements, and it is possible and necessary to structure the purchase of goods in such a way that the prices still approach market prices, and do not increase due to additional services,” Radina said.
She also said the first step in combating this was taken through the proposal of a bill on transparency to defense procurement, notably regarding the cost of goods purchased with budget funds and the cost of works or services.
She further noted that rejecting purchases combining 400 goods and services and more will “promote competition and help reduce the price.”
Khmelnytskyi is the second defense official to have officially been relieved from his post after Deputy Defense Minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov, who had submitted his resignation earlier on Tuesday, according to a Defense Ministry statement.
Multiple other Ukrainian officials either stepped down or were relieved of their duties on the same day, amid steps by Kyiv to combat allegations of corruption in the government.