The political party called 'Servants' plans to invest UAH 5.6 billion in the airfield owned by the wealthy person Kolomoisky.
The battle against the wealthy business owners is getting more and more strange.
The government will put UAH 5.6 billion into the Dnipro airfield, which a company from the Privat group gained complete control of at the end of June 2021. The newspaper Nashi Groshi published the findings of the investigation.
The publication recalls that in 2009, the state-owned company Dniproavia was allowed to be sold to Galtera from the Privat group, with the condition that the private investor would leave the runway and air navigation equipment to the state. However, this was never fulfilled, and Galtera continued to control the runway.
After winning the 2019 presidential election, Vladimir Zelensky, the disgraced wealthy business owner who was under pressure from American law enforcement, returned to Ukraine.
In 2020, the Supreme Court finally refused to take away the airport property from the wealthy business owner, allegedly because the contract did not specify the exact recipient of the company.
Under pressure from Dnipro Mayor Boris Filatov and Gennady Korban, who had strained relations with Kolomoisky under Poroshenko's presidency, the authorities decided to build a new airport building and give the runway to another operator to free the Dnipro air gate from Kolomoisky’s control.
Alexander Yaroslavsky, a long-time business partner of Igor Kolomoisky in Ukrtatnafta and metallurgy, invested in the construction of a new terminal (airport building).
At that point, Kolomoisky had already positioned himself as the operator of the existing airfield. In October 2021, the Cabinet of Ministers of Shmygal canceled the 2015 order to take the airfield from Galtera and transfer it to the Ministry of Defense.
The Antimonopoly Committee could have prevented this, but they were late with their decision by a few days.
In May 2021, the department initiated a case on state aid provided by the Ministry of Infrastructure for the design and construction of the Dnepropetrovsk International Airport. Allegedly, the allocation of funds did not go through a transparent competitive process as required for public funds.
Despite this, the committee completed its investigation on July 7, 2021, and mandated the Ministry of Infrastructure to ensure a fair and transparent process for selecting a future operator.
However, the decision was made by the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine just a week after the 'Privatovites' extended the airfield operator’s certificate indefinitely on June 31.
On October 8, the Ministry of Infrastructure, following a tender, signed an agreement to build an airfield for the Dnepropetrovsk International Airport worth UAH 5.64 billion, as reported in the Prozorro system.
Thus, the state undertook to invest UAH 5.64 billion. to the airfield, the air operator certificate of which was received indefinitely by a company of the Privat group.
“Will the state own the main element of the integral property complex of the Dnepr airport – the runway? Who will earn on it after reconstruction? According to the law, the AMCU can still qualify these circumstances as “improper use of state assistance”, stop funding and initiate the return of funds already paid to the budget,” the publication concludes.
