The director of the Polissia Forestry Office, Oleksandr Kvatyrko, illegally transfers land plots and property on the territory of the forestry enterprises under his control to his friends.
This assumption was made by journalists of the Center for Investigative Journalism “Power of Truth” in their material.
What is Kvatyrko accused of?
The chief forester of Volyn is accused of facilitating several illegal transactions:
1. The transfer by the Kivertsi forestry of an office building from state to private ownership in the middle of the Vorotniv botanical reserve. After a large-scale reconstruction, according to investigators, the director's friends settled there. The journalists suspect that the reconstruction was carried out at public expense, but the luxurious house in the reserve went to its owner for a suspiciously small sum of UAH 50,000.
Collage: sylapravdy.com.
2. Provision of 2.5 hectares of forest in Bogolyuby near Lutsk to an acquaintance, Oksana Komarova, for use for 49 years.
3. The transfer to her of private ownership of a plot of land on the territory of the recreational base of the Lyuboml Forest Farm on the shore of Lake Svityaz. According to the latest materials of forestry land management, these plots are the 52nd quarter of the Shatsky Forest Farm, the journalists claim.
"Once upon a time, these lands suspiciously passed from state ownership to private ownership," they say.
4. Facilitation in the acquisition into private ownership of land plots of the forest fund in the same massif for other people known to Oleksandr Kvatyrk: his lawyer and local businessmen.
There is already one proceeding with the participation of an official
In their investigation, the journalists claim that the State Bureau of Investigation has now opened proceedings involving Oleksandr Kvatyrko, the director of the Polissky Forestry Office. He is accused of illegal enrichment.
"According to the investigation, he registered his property to trusted persons and brought it to a communal plot of land, which is located in the same massif in Svityaz, where the plots are owned by a number of people related to him", – they say in "Strength of Truth".
What is wrong with the estate, which was once a forester's house
Separately, the investigators noted that the reconstruction carried out on the territory of the "Vorotniv" botanical reserve, with the increase of the area of the house, as well as the arrangement of the swimming pool on the territory, is absolutely illegal. They said that in October 2019, the Lutsk Prosecutor's Office even opened criminal proceedings on the fact of spontaneous construction on an arbitrarily seized plot of land in a botanical reserve, but the case was later closed.
"This estate is located within the boundaries of the nature reserve fund. The pool was not dug in the estate, but on the territory of the nature reserve fund. There is no functional zoning in the reserve, there are no defined boundaries where any construction could be allowed. The entire area is particularly Even if the reconstruction of the residential premises was planned, it should not have increased in width, only in height the Volyn eco-inspection should be engaged," said Kateryna Filyuta, an environmentalist from the NGO "Ukrainian Environmental Protection Group".
But the State Environmental Inspection does not see any problems with illegal construction on the territory of the nature reserve fund. Oleksandr Tkachuk, the first deputy head of the State Inspectorate in the Volyn region, suggested in a conversation with journalists that the residents of the estate had the right to build a swimming pool in the middle of the reserve.
He said that when a forestry enterprise carries out forest management, they separately display the “estate” territory, where employees of the state forestry enterprise or former employees of the forestry enterprise have the right to use the housing stock. And if there is a construction project on its territory, then you can build anything.
The State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” and the Polissia Forestry Office did not provide any explanations at the request of journalists about the estate.
The other day, EcoPolitic reported that, according to the media, a police colonel is “covering” illegal logging in Chernihiv region.
Read about what Svitlana Hrynchuk, the head of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, thinks about forestry reform and corruption in the industry in an exclusive interview she gave to EcoPolitics.
