Such was the case this week, when two reporters released the results of their investigations in the procurement of food for schools where children have the status of being victims of the 1986 Chornobyl disaster.
The Ministry for Social Policy awarded nearly Hr 500 million worth of tenders for such schools to a number of companies that had previously supplied food for soldiers or prisoners. Many of these companies turned out to be intermediaries selling low quality food at inflated prices.
In one case, Zhukinska School in Vyshorod, Kyiv Oblast, received poor quality apples at almost three times the market price. Ten eggs that cost Hr 8.6 on average were supplied to the school at Hr 40 for 10, and so on.
As a result, children were left with little food. Four chickens, for example, were supposed to feed 106 kids at one point. At other times, schools were supplied with Brazilian pork that was banned first in Russia, then in Ukraine, because it contained a number of harmful components.
At the same time, suppliers were pocketing handsome profits and upgrading the cars they drive (but not the delivery trucks).
Victoria Slipenko, head of the procurements department of the ministry, initially said there could be no violations by these companies because “they are checked so vigorously.” Yet on June 20 Minister Natalia Korolevska ordered to check all companies in 12 regions who supply food for 236,000 children who have Chornobyl victim status.
The journalists who rang the bell discovered a somewhat obscure connection between some of the companies in question and the “Family,” a loose group of individuals connected to President Viktor Yanukovych’s circle. This connection should also be investigated, of course. The president’s kids have plenty to eat, and don’t actually need to rob the nation’s poor.
But regardless of who’s behind the rip-off schemes, they need to be put in jail. There are no arguments in the world that can justify stealing from children
