Spotting a corrupt official may become easier now that the activists launched a website that aims to list all the owners of elite residential property in Kyiv.
Garna Hata (“A Nice House”) lists elite residential buildings of Kyiv and the names of the property owners. The data comes from the State Register for Property Rights, where it is bought from in small portions by volunteers.
Denys Bigus, head of the investigative reporting project Nashi Groshi at ZIK TV, launched the website with his own money on Feb. 13. In just first three days it saw 20,000 visitors.
So far the website lists 150 owners in eight buildings, including Kyiv’s trademark residential complexes like Pechersk Hills Residence, Novopecherski Lypky, Chelsea Tower, and others. They do not clearly define what constitutes an elite property.
The public is invited to help identify owners. So far 25 owners from the listings were recognized by the website visitors and received short descriptions of who they are. To protect the owners’ privacy, the website doesn’t list the apartments’ numbers.
“I hope that this website will help journalistic investigations, civil activism, and law enforcers,” Bigus said, commenting on the website launch on Feb. 13.
Even though the website is still under development, it has already proved to be useful.
One of the listed owners, Liudmyla Bashkalenko, was identified as the wife of a former governor of Volyn Oblast and Party of Regions’ member Oleksandr Bashkalenko. Her husband occupied the governor office briefly in February of 2014, and was fired after the EuroMaidan Reolution. Bashkalenko’s apartment in Zlatoustivskiy residential complex near Lukianivka neighborhood was bought six months after he left the post, in August of 2014.
Also, the journalists of Nashi Groshi corruption watchdog have noticed that a spacious 255 square meters apartment in Novopecherski Lypky is owned by the same Dutch company that was an official owner of a mansion of Vitaliy Zakharchenko, scandalous former interior minister and one of the key allies of the former President Viktor Yanukovych. Zakharchenko has fled the country and is wanted in Ukraine.
The website aimed at finding corrupt officials’ apartments was launched just a day after the parliament adopted an anti-corruption bill that makes it possible to confiscate the property from the officials who can’t explain how they had the money to buy it.
