350 million "for their own": how the Odesa city administration rigged tenders for collector repairs between road giants

350 million "for their own": how the Odesa city administration rigged tenders for collector repairs between road giants

After the last session of the Odesa City Council, where the development budget was approved, the Capital Construction Department promptly summarized the results of the most expensive infrastructure tenders. Despite the shortage of funds in the city treasury, financing for priority projects was secured, though the process of selecting winners raises numerous questions regarding real competition.

This is reported by blogger Iryna Hryb.

The greatest controversy was caused by the procurement for the "Deaf Bridge" project, which involves the major repair of a section of the stormwater collector from Balkivska Street to Otaman Holovaty Street. With a starting cost of 226 million hryvnias, the tender, which concluded on February 27, followed a scenario of filtering out "unnecessary" participants. Four companies took part in the procedure, but the cheapest bid from "YugHidroservis" was rejected due to formal violations in the documentation. As a result, the winner was declared to be the company "Rostdorstroy." Notably, city council deputy Yuriy Shumakher demonstrated remarkable awareness of the future results even before the final stage of the bidding.

A similar scheme can be observed in the neighboring project — the reconstruction of an emergency section of the buffer pond, costing 133 million hryvnias. Here, the client also removed a more advantageous offer from the company "Yughidrostroy" from consideration, awarding the victory to the company "Avtomahistral-Pivden," which proposed a higher price. Interestingly, "Rostdorstroy" did not even submit a bid for this lot, which may indicate an unspoken synchronization of decisions among key market players.

Thus, over 350 million hryvnias of budget funds were allocated for just two projects. The scale of financing and the systematic rejection of more cost-effective options highlight the need for thorough oversight. Relevant requests are currently being prepared to verify the legality of the tender committee’s actions, as the situation appears to be a straightforward misappropriation of funds "for insiders" under the guise of the critical need to repair infrastructure networks.