The Supreme Court of Ukraine acquitted former Minister of Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelyan. He was accused of having issued an order that reduced revenues to the state budget.
Omelyan himself wrote about this on his Facebook.
"Regarding my case: the decision is final, it is not subject to review, I have been fully acquitted by both instances of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court," he noted.
Omelyan also criticized anti-corruption bodies and expressed hope that NABU will conduct an independent audit of his case.
- According to the investigation, in December 2017, Omelyan signed an order to reduce all port fees (except lighthouse fees) by 20%. However, one of these fees (administrative) is a revenue part of the budget, so only the Verkhovna Rada, not the minister, could change its size. Due to Omelyanʼs actions, the budget allegedly received 30.5 million hryvnias short. Omelyan himself explained that the Ministry of Infrastructure reduced port fees because it was implementing the governmentʼs decision.
- This is the second investigation into Omelyan. The first related to illegal enrichment and declaration of false information. But the case was closed at the end of the summer due to the expiration of the statute of limitations for prosecution.