Kherson Regional Psychiatric Hospital may have overpaid more than 65,000 UAH during the purchase of vegetables that were ordered from suspicious entrepreneurs with minimal business history.
This became known after analysis of the procurement published on the Prozorro portal.
Back in October Kherson Psychiatric Hospital purchased a batch of vegetables with a total weight of 7340 kg. Two local entrepreneurs – sole proprietors (FOP) Iryna Kulish and Andriy Lykhatskyi participated in the tender.
According to the analytical system YouControl, both Kulish and Lykhatskyi have not been in business for long. Iryna Kulish registered as an FOP in May this year, and Lykhatskyi – in July. Although the latter had been an entrepreneur before, he stopped his activity back in 2017.
Despite the fact that both entrepreneurs have been supplying food for less than half a year, they have already managed to accumulate quite a number of contracts – Kulish received orders totaling 5.5 million UAH, and Lykhatskyi 990 thousand UAH.
But let’s return to the vegetables for the psychiatric hospital.
In the October procurement Kulish offered to supply the batch of products for 105.8 thousand UAH, and Lykhatskyi – for 120.1 thousand UAH.
At first the hospital wanted to sign a contract with Kulish, but she suddenly refused to sign the contract and the winner became Andriy Lykhatskyi with the more expensive offer.
After checking the prices at which the hospital purchased vegetables from Lykhatskyi, MOST found significant overpayments.
For example, beetroot was bought from Lykhatskyi at a price of 12.71 UAH/kg, although in a large Ukrainian retail chain beetroot costs 6.95 UAH/kg (without delivery).
White cabbage was bought for 19.71 UAH/kg, and carrots for 15.75 UAH/kg, while in retail stores they cost 7.95 UAH/kg (without delivery).
Bulb onions were sold by Lykhatskyi to the hospital at 12.71 UAH/kg, while in stores they are more than twice as cheap – 5.59 UAH/kg (without delivery).
Thus, when purchasing from Lykhatskyi the hospital may have overpaid approximately 65.9 thousand UAH compared with average market prices for these vegetables.
This publication was created within the project of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) “Strengthening Public Oversight” with financial support from Norway.