The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) has discovered over UAH 100,000 in social transfers being taken from the state budget and delivered to seven officials of the so-called Finance Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People`s Republic (DPR), the SBU press service reported.
”Law enforcement officers have found out that seven officials of the so-called `DPR Finance Ministry` and the subordinated `treasury department` were registered early this year as internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia regions,” the statement reads.
It is noted that these officials have already received over UAH 100,000 in social transfers. Payments were collected by friends and transferred by couriers to the temporarily occupied territory.
The Pension Fund and other social security agencies have been informed of the findings of the Security Service and suspended any payments in favor of ”pseudo IDPs”
.”Step by step we are purging the payments system of pseudo IDPs and people who are collaborating with terrorist groups. Existing corruption and bogus schemes are being closed, with billions of hryvnias stripped from the budget,” Vice Prime Minister Pavlo Rozenko wrote on Facebook.
As UNIAN reported earlier, following the inspection in 2015, the SBU reported to the Ministry of Social Policy on 450,000 persons who had been registered as temporary migrants, but were not residing in the territory controlled by Ukrainian authorities. The payments to those citizens were suspended until their residence in the territory under Ukraine`s control was confirmed.
In late May 2016, Rozenko said only 90,000 out of 450,000 registered as IDPs had confirmed their residences. Payments to those 90,000 people were then resumed.
In February this year, Head of the SBU Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Hrytsak stated that the SBU had revealed abuses in the registration of social transfers to IDPs.
According to Hrytsak, in most cases registration was carried out without the displaced persons being present. What is more, the registration was made in the name of dead and missing persons.
