A DJ played hip-hop music, and a man was dancing in a fur coat with a crown and a cut-out of Health Minister Maksym Stepanov’s smiling face as a mask. Dozens of people wearing medical masks were moving to the beat, too, with flares in their hands next to empty hospital beds. There was champagne in a bucket of dry ice, red caviar, and piles of fake U.S. dollars.
In this way, approximately 100 protesters rallied in front of the presidential administration in Kyiv on May 29 against alleged corruption in the health ministry, which reportedly planned to buy protective equipment for doctors fighting COVID-19 for inflated prices.
On May 26, Bihus.info, a Ukrainian investigative journalism center, reported that the cost of some protective equipment that the health ministry led by Stepanov intended to purchase was two times higher than the prices paid by Patients of Ukraine charity foundation, one of the largest patient rights groups in Ukraine, which has also procured protective equipment with donor funds for hospitals during the pandemic response. For instance, the discrepancy in the cost of nearly 4.5 million protective suits only would be over Hr 1 billion, the investigative journalists claimed.
The journalists compared the estimated costs submitted by the health ministry to the parliament to unlock nearly Hr 3 billion from the state fund for COVID-19 with the expenses of the Patient of Ukraine group on similar items of protective gear.
Stepanov was appointed by parliament on March 30.
In mid-April, the health ministry raised public suspicions for canceling the order on protective suits with a Ukrainian manufacturer and buying them from China instead, for double the cost and delays in delivery.
Among the speakers was a member of parliament, Olga Stefanyshyna, who warned in an interview with the Kyiv Post published on May 20, 2020, that corrupt practices had returned to the ministry.
