The National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) has completed a routine inspection of the organization of work on preventing and detecting corruption at the state specialized economic enterprise Forests of Ukraine and documented a number of violations.
The report was published on the agency's official website.
Thus, the NAPC experts found that corruption risks arise due to the lack of clear mechanisms for selecting forest plots for road construction and tree felling. This creates grounds for abuse.
They cited the following example: officials of one of the company's branches unreasonably planned to build a forest road in 2023, despite the fact that part of this road had already been built in previous years. Based on the materials prepared by the NAPC, the National Police has already registered a criminal proceeding on the grounds of a corruption offense under Part 4 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
To eliminate such corruption risks, the NAPC sent a letter to the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine with a proposal to develop a regulatory act that would regulate the rules for selecting forest plots for road construction and logging. The new document should take into account the requirements of environmental legislation and the restrictions it establishes on such activities.
Corruption risks also arise from delays by the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” in processing title documents for the use of forest lands. This allows officials to abuse the withdrawal of forest plots from the forest fund, use them for other purposes, and cut down trees.
According to the NAPC, about 50 criminal proceedings have been initiated in this area, 5 of which were initiated by the agency itself.
A pre-trial investigation is being conducted into the abuse of office by officials of the territorial divisions of the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine”, the NAPC said. These officials used almost 40 hectares of forest land, in particular within nature reserves in Dnipro, Odesa, and Rivne regions, for other purposes than their intended purpose. In particular, they sowed and grew grain on the land.
In addition, in Ivano-Frankivsk region, deforestation was carried out on the territory of the Osmolodsk Forestry on the basis of a special permit from the Western Interregional Forestry and Hunting Department, but the fact that the land plot is located in the protected area of the Grofa landscape reserve of national importance was concealed.
In the inspection report, the NAPC emphasized that the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” should intensify its work on registration of rights to forest plots.
As EcoPolitic recently reported, the court opened a case against the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” for refusing to protect the virgin forests of Shipot. We also told you that Yuriy Bolokhovets, Director General of the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine”, declared “free accommodation” in a luxury apartment in Kyiv.
