Every seventh company from "black list" of AMCU continues to receive government contracts

Every seventh company from the "black list" of the Anti-Monopoly Committee of Ukraine continues to receive government contracts, - the Anti-Corruption Center reports.

"163 companies from the list of violators of the Anti-Monopoly Committee continue to win tenders and conclude contracts with state institutions despite the ban", - the report said.

According to the law, the company is excluded from participation in public purchases for three years, if it was held liable for collusion in the auction. Such decisions are made by the Anti-Monopoly Committee and its branches and accordingly, form the so-called "black list". In total, there were 1108 companies in the AMCU's "black list" at the end of 2017. It is noted that in most cases, companies-violators have successfully participated in the starting procurement. Nine of them won in tenders, what allowed receiving almost $2.5 million from state institutions.

And if in the second case, companies violate the law, providing false information to the customer about their absence in the "black list", the conclusion of contracts with companies-violators at the starting procurement is not a violation. Some customers deliberately split the amount of purchases into smaller ones, so that instead of tenders, they can carry out starting procurements.

"The law does not require that government customers check the participants in the procurement procedures whether they are not in the "black list" of the AMCU, but they have the right to verify this information. It is quite simple to do it - just go to the website of the Anti-Monopoly Committee and check the availability of company in the "black list" in a few clicks. Unfortunately, we find out many cases when government agencies ignore this possibility. This allows companies-violators to submit false information and successfully receive funds from government agencies", - lawyer of the Center for Counteracting Corruption Oleksandr Lytvyn notes.

The total amount that companies-violators received both at tenders and starting purchases in 2017 may be equal to hundreds of millions of hryvnia. For example, according to Open Data Bot, in 2016, such companies won tenders for $17.5 million. Most of these agreements were concluded by the end of the year, namely in October-December.

If you analyze companies from the "black list", many of them were seen in high-profile open scandals associated with corruption.

In particular, among companies-violators that won tenders in 2017, there is the Kharkiv firm OOO Construction Group International, which in 2015, was trying to "raze" $266 thousand on the construction of new building of Karazin Kharkiv National University. Subsequently, at the request of the Center for Counteracting Corruption, the company was fined and included in the black list, but this did not stop it from going on tenders. In total, OOO Construction Group International received a little more than $190 thousand in 2017.