The Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) registered draft law No. 8381, which proposes to make defense procurement more open and transparent.
The MPs propose to oblige the state customer of defense procurement to publish a report on defense procurement in the electronic procurement system based on its results.
At the same time, the value of the procurement item for defense goods and services equals or exceeds UAH 200 000, and for defense works — UAH 1.5 million.
In addition, the report must contain information on the name of the state customer (service of the state customer), the name of the subject of purchase (with an indication of the unit of measurement of the goods), the price per unit of the product, the price of works, services.
The draft law also provides for comprehensive publication of information on the cost of products (goods) and other types of services included in the generalized cost of food services.
The specified data shall be made public, in addition to information on the procurement of goods, works and services for defense purposes, which constitute a state secret.
- On January 21, ZN.ua journalists accused the Ministry of Defense of purchasing food products at several times inflated prices. The article stated that prices for products are three times higher than retail prices in Kyiv supermarkets. The agreement worth 13.16 billion hryvnias was concluded on December 23, 2022. It is about providing food to military units stationed in Poltava, Sumy, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Chernihiv and Cherkasy regions.
- On January 23, the Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov personally responded to these criticisms, in particular, he explained that the Ministry of Defense does not buy individual products, but a complex service — food supply. The Minister explained that the prices of the eight suppliers are different, as well as in supermarket chains, because each one has its own specialization and own production of a certain group of goods. Product prices are analyzed by special expert institutions.
- On January 24, it became known that the Deputy Minister of Defense Vyacheslav Shapovalov, who was responsible for the rear support of the Armed Forces, resigned.