You're reading: Zelensky’s party loses state funding due to violations

The National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NAPC) has found “signs of possible criminal offenses” in the financial declaration of the governing Servant of the People party.

As of March 1, the agency stopped the financing of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s party until further notice.

Lawmaker Oleksandr Kornienko, head of the Servant of the People party, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that the party is looking into the matter.

According to Ukrainian law, parties that got 5% or more of the vote at the parliamentary election, making it to parliament, qualify to receive financial assistance from the state budget. 

Five parties qualify for such assistance: Zelensky’s Servant of the People (245 seats in the parliament), a Pro-Russian Opposition Platform For Life (44 seats), ex-President Petro Poroshenko’s European Solidarity (27 seats), Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna (24 seats), and a liberal opposition party Voice (20 seats).

In 2021, the Servant of the People party is due to receive Hr 345.8 million ($12.3 million). That’s nearly half of the total amount of taxpayers’ money set to be disbursed among the parties.

After reviewing the Servant of the People party financial statements, the NAPC says it suspects the party of violating financial procedures, forging documents, and embezzlement or misappropriation of property by abusing office.

The last allegation is the most severe, punishable by up to 12 years in prison. The NAPC said it submitted the materials to the National Police, which is now expected to start an investigation.

According to the NAPC, the Servant of the People party had lied in their financial statements for both the first and second quarters of 2020.

According to the agency, the party reported that it paid Hr 1.2 million ($45,000) to private entrepreneur H.V. Novikov in mid-February 2020, despite the entrepreneur’s bank account being opened in mid-March.

Furthermore, the agency deemed suspicious that millions of hryvnias were transferred to private entrepreneurs for webinars, website development, event organization and sociological studies. Some events organized by the party didn’t correspond to the amount of money the party reported spending on them. 

It’s not the first time a party in parliament has problems with the NAPC. In late 2020, the agency found violations in the financial statements of the Batkivshchyna party and the Voice party, and put their funding on hold. Soon, it was restored.

Recently, Schemes, an investigative journalism project of RFE/RL, revealed that two aides to Servant of the People party lawmakers created a non-profit organization that finances the party’s lobbyism in the U.S.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, an NGO called the Transatlantic Dialogue and Engagement Center pays $50,000 a month to Finsbury Glover Hering to “in close cooperation with the Servant of the People party facilitate dialogue, exchanges and other interactions between members of the Ukrainian parliament and their counterparts and other officials in the United States.”

According to Schemes, the Transatlantic Dialogue and Engagement Center was established by Pavlo Velykorechanin and Stanislav Kostyuchenko, who are aides to Servant of the People lawmakers Oleksandr Tkachenko and Ivan Shynkarenko.

Party leader Kornienko told RFE/RL that he doesn’t know of any paid lobbying conducted on behalf of his party.