The BYT-Batkivschyna faction in the Ukrainian parliament has transferred Hr 3.6 million to the haemato-oncology center for bone marrow transplantation at the Okhmatdyt National Children's Hospital.
"The people’s deputies of the BYT-Batkivschyna faction transferred, and members of the board of trustees received, Hr 3.6 million," the leader of the faction, Andriy Kozhemiakin, said on Friday, Feb. 17
He noted that the BYT-Batkivschyna faction had conducted "a special operation" to discover evidence of the bribing of people’s deputies to form the parliamentary majority.
"We decided from the very beginning that these funds would be transferred for children’s treatment," the MP said.
Kozhemiakin passed the funds together with members of the BYT-Batkivschyna faction, Olena Shustik, Andriy Pavlovsky, Serhiy Pashynsky, and the main person involved in the factions’ special operation, Roman Zabzaliuk.
After the transfer of the money, the deputies of the BYT-Batkivschyna faction refused to answer journalists’ questions.
"There is no place for political PR here in the hospital," Pashynsky said.
Kozhemiakin added that he would not answer any questions related to politics in the hospital. In addition, he refused to explain why the funds were transferred to the hospital in hryvnias, and not in U.S. dollars.
Representatives from the center’s board of trustees said that the assets would be spent on the purchase of medicines for children. A list of 38 names of medicines that are to be purchased was distributed to reporters.
Earlier, Zabzaliuk stated that he had obtained a bribe of $450,000 for his transfer from the BYT-Batkivschyna faction to the Reforms for Future deputy group. BYT said that $450,000 is the equivalent of Hr 3.6 million.
The Reforms for Future group denied Zabzaliuk’s claims. They said they had collected $100,000 so that he could have an operation in Israel, the member of the group said.
Later on Friday, the Reforms for Future deputy group stated that it is glad that the BYT-Batkivschyna faction had transferred Hr 3.6 million for treatment of children.
"We are happy that our funds will be spent on treatment, actually we raised them for this purpose. We are also satisfied that the sum received by Okhmatdyt is five times higher than the amount of funds raised by deputies of our faction for treatment of this fraud Zabzaliuk," reads a statement of Leader of the Reform for Future group Ihor Rybakov distributed by his press service.
