Ukravtodor has partnered with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to clean the state road agency’s ranks from corruption starting in March, Ukravtodor announced on March 16.
The agreement is part of a 450-million-euro loan signed between Ukravtodor and the EBRD in December 2020 to finance the repair of the Kyiv-Odesa highway and the construction of a new bypass around Lviv.
To receive all three tranches — 100 million euros, 160 million euros and 190 million euros — Ukravtodor’s management must improve its procurement system following the standards of transparency of the EBRD to prevent bribery and corruption.
One of the ways to fight corruption there is to transfer the agency’s processes online, Oleksandr Kubrakov, CEO of Ukravtodor, said on Facebook.
“The pilot project from the EBRD gives a chance to these changes to become irreversible,” he wrote.
Making Ukravtodor’s procurement more transparent is critical for the agency that is often associated with endemic corruption over road tenders.
In September 2020, civic organization Competition and Consumers Protection Council sent a letter to the Anti-Monopoly Committee of Ukraine, accusing several road repair companies connected to Ukravtodor of collusion to win tenders.
Prior to that, international anti-corruption investigators from Ukraine and Poland had arrested Slawomir Novak, former head of Ukravtodor in 2016-2019, charging him with corruption in July 2020.
Novak, a Polish citizen, was arrested alongside two other suspects in Poland for allegedly running a procurement tenders scheme to steal international funds allocated to repair Ukraine’s poor roads.
The investigation is looking into road repair tenders worth 270 million euros.
Nowak is awaiting trial in Poland. He may face 12 years in prison.
