The Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Dmytro Klimenkov, shared the details of reforms in the field of procurement carried out by the Ministry of Defense in accordance with NATO standards, which are aimed at fighting corruption.
According to him, from now on the Ministry of Defense sets maximum prices for food products purchased for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
"If earlier, according to NABU, suppliers fixed the price of potatoes at 16 hryvnias per kilogram, then in one of the tenders in December 2023, the Ministry of Defense set a maximum price of 10.35 hryvnias," he said.
According to him, before the introduction of the reforms carried out by the Ministry of Defense, suppliers set abnormally low prices for those products that they did not intend to deliver regularly, and for products that they planned to deliver daily and in large batches, they imposed high prices.
“This kept the total price for the entire catalog low, which allowed them to win tenders. And it was because of this scheme that we saw eggs sold for 17 hryvnias," Dmytro Klimenkov emphasized.
He also noted that the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine should set the rules, and not deal directly with procurement.
"For this, we created the Department of Procurement Policy based on NATO standards. But we delegated the procurement functions to two agencies. "One agency is engaged in arms procurement, and the other is engaged in rear-end needs," he said.
"We cannot allow any space for corruption in defense procurement," he added.
In January 2024, Dmytro Klimenkov identified cleaning the system of unscrupulous participants participating in public procurement as one of the priorities of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine team.
