“Queue at the Cash Desk”: party donors don’t even know they supported parties with thousands of hryvnias

“Queue at the Cash Desk”: party donors don’t even know they supported parties with thousands of hryvnias

Who and how much is decided by the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP). In turn, parties report quarterly to the NACP about their donors and expenditures. And often the people listed in the reports don’t even know they funded a party out of their own pockets, according to Maryana Motrunych’s report “Queue at the Cash Desk” for the program “Our Money with Denys Bihus.”

The law took effect in July 2016, so last year the NACP distributed to politicians less than half of the planned 390 million budgetary hryvnias. Of the 165 million distributed, the People’s Front and the Petro Poroshenko Bloc “Solidarity” each received 50 million, Samopomich – 25 million, the Radical Party 17 and All-Ukrainian Union “Fatherland” – 6,5 million hryvnias.

Donations for Tymoshenko

In the annual report of Fatherland, the CHESNO movement noticed that citizens’ donations were deposited into the party account too systematically. Fatherland received 7,5 million hryvnias from its supporters. Mostly, residents of Kyiv region supported Yulia Tymoshenko with money.

The program “Our Money” visited several donors to Fatherland. The party’s donors from Kyiv region can be roughly divided into 3 categories. The first are party pensioners who made small contributions from 2 to 20 hryvnias, but in the report several of their contributions are recorded at 2 thousand hryvnias.

The second category are people who did not make any contributions at all, yet appeared in the report as sponsors after working on elections (and for another political force at that).

The third group, among whom “Our Money” found a local council deputy, actually admitted to having donated significant sums to Fatherland.

Party leader Yulia Tymoshenko, asked about the discrepancy between reality and the report, insists that people were so frightened that they hide their sponsorship.

“Don’t judge people harshly for answering this way. They are simply afraid of political repression,” politician Yulia Tymoshenko replied.

Note that the pensioners openly mocked the version about donations larger than their pensions and did not appear frightened in any way.

Party assistants help the party more seriously. Former assistant to Natalia Korolevska and now head of Luhansk Fatherland Irina Verihina donated 100 thousand hryvnias to the party. And the assistant to MP Ivan Krulko turned out to be a regional council deputy in Volyn herself. “She is a self-sufficient person in Volyn and this is known, and I think she could afford to contribute 100 thousand for financing Fatherland,” Krulko assured.

Not as generously as individuals, businesses donated money to Yulia Tymoshenko’s party, total amounting to 1,5 million hryvnias. The ownership structure of two corporate donors includes residents of Cyprus, the United States of America, China and African countries. Although Yulia Tymoshenko insists that her party definitely has no such donors: “There are no non-residents of Ukraine; we are financed honestly.”

By law, political parties cannot be financed from abroad.

For renting Fatherland’s main office the party paid 2,5 million hryvnias to its own MP - Oleksandr Abdullin. The party was one of the first to disclose its vehicle fleet. Party vehicle repairs cost 420 thousand hryvnias.

In 2016 the budget allocated only 6,5 million hryvnias to Fatherland because the party did not submit its report on time.

Radical reporting

Radical Party leader Oleh Liashko last year received about 17 million hryvnias from the state budget for the party. And almost all the funds went to PR in the media.

The party rents its central office of 182 sq. m. from Liashko himself. According to the report, the only sponsors of the party are Liashko himself, because he rents out the office for free, and Nina Danylchenko, who works for the radicals for free as an accountant. Another RPL office is rented from a firm linked to radical MP Serhii Rybalka. Here it is already not about charity: for 285 sq. m. the party paid 400 thousand hryvnias.

The radicals borrow a car from Liashko’s advisor Oleksandr Hulak, who is an assistant to RPL MP Oleksii Lensky. A bulletproof Cadillac Escalade worth more than 150 thousand dollars was already noted by our program.

The party report states that renting this vehicle cost the radicals only 6 440 hryvnias per month. Oleh Liashko refused to comment on this “preferential” rate.

Samopomich: themselves for themselves

Unlike the radicals, who get almost no donations, Samopomich’s report lists contributions totaling over a million hryvnias. The most generous were assistants to current Samopomich MPs: assistants to Oleh Lavryk gave the party over 100 thousand hryvnias, business partner of MP Oleksandr Danchenko - 130 thousand hryvnias. Faction leader Oleh Bereziuk explains that these are all voluntary membership fees.

Before state funding, the party seemed to operate without any employees. Only after state support began did the party’s payroll expenses rise from zero to 1,5 million hryvnias. According to Oksana Syroyid, prior to that Samopomich operated exclusively on a volunteer basis.

More than half of all state funding the party spent on PR and advertising.

Last year Samopomich received 24 million hryvnias from the state budget and an additional 20 million for complying with the gender quota.

Phantom millionaires of the Opposition Bloc

In 2016 the Opposition Bloc refused budgetary funding. In 2017 it applied to the NACP and, based on the results of its financial report, received 12 million hryvnias for the first quarter of this year. However, now Opposition Bloc leader Yurii Boiko insists that budget funding is unethical and that the party has refused it. Yet no formal refusal application was submitted to the NACP.

Over 2016 years the Opposition Bloc collected as many contributions as the budget offered them just for the first quarter of 2017. More than 12 million hryvnias flowed into the party’s accounts. Luhansk resident Borys Liabedev gave the party three quarters of his income - 90 thousand hryvnias out of 120. The assistant to former regionalist Chechetov donated 80 thousand hryvnias, and a female member of the Opposition Bloc from Kherson donated a third of a million.

A co-leader of the party assures that he knows his contributors. But they don’t know him.

LLC “Magden Plus” and LLC “Stemit LTD” are recently registered companies and donors of the oppositionists. The companies have identical authorized capital, identical line of activity – real estate leasing – and equally have no real estate. At the business donors’ registered address there is a hair salon. The firms were created using the “Virtual Office” service – turnkey registration of legal entities.

Despite the obvious “fakeness,” these donors passed NACP scrutiny:

- Did you check the legal entities that provided funds?

- Yes, we reviewed them all; basically these legal entities operate there, and there are questions about these legal entities... and we clarified who exactly is the ultimate beneficiary owner of these legal entities.

- And did you find everything out?

- Well unfortunately, we do not have such broad capabilities to review everything.

The party’s report also lists donor companies “Hyperion-Mega” and “Tefiya-2011.” The director and founder of Hyperion flatly denied that he owned such a firm:

- Do you have a company called “Hyperion-Mega”?

- No.

- Then how did you get on the list?

- I don’t know.

“Hyperion-Mega” and “Tefiya-2011” are registered at the premises of a state fishery enterprise in Kyiv, and were previously linked to millionaire and Opposition Bloc MP Vadym Novynskyi through Cypriot companies.

Overall, legal entities paid 1 million 100 thousand hryvnias to the party. Among donor firms was one connected to the management of Akhmetov’s Zaporizhstal.

The presidential party — presidential expenses

A peculiarity of Solidarity’s report is small contributions from big people. For 20, 60 or even 80 hryvnias paid both the city mayor Vitali Klitschko and Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko, MPs Kononenko, Berezenko and others, although the faction leader denies the existence of membership fees in Solidarity.

Meanwhile, MP Serhii Alekseiev donated 100 thousand hryvnias to the party. The brother of Energy Minister Ihor Nasalyk, Serhii, stood out — he contributed almost 900 thousand hryvnias.

Last year Solidarity received 49 million hryvnias from the NACP. Almost half went to advertising and PR.

Frontline PR

Of 50 million hryvnias the People’s Front spent 33 million on PR. The largest payouts went to “1+1” and “2+2”, then to TRK “Ukraine”, ICTV. Faction leader Maksym Burbak explains: “This is permitted by law. We must popularize the work of our deputies, our party, among citizens.”

According to calculations by the CHESNO movement, the market price of the People’s Front’s advertising is significantly higher than the 33 million stated in the report.

The party’s office rent shows strong political cooperation. For about 2 million hryvnias the Front paid to the family of an apparent competitor — former regionalist and member of Vidrodzhennia, and arguably the Parliament’s main vote-pusher — Anton Yatsenko. MP Yatsenko commented succinctly on the situation:

- Why does the People’s Front rent premises from your sister?

- I am not my sister, and not the People’s Front.

“Front” member Denys Dzenzerskyi also paid over 11 million hryvnias for renting an office of 321 sq. m. from Yatsenko’s sister. From additional comments by MP Yatsenko it appears that he is not his sister, not the People’s Front, and not the deputy Dzenzerskyi. The People’s Front could not explain the strange rental relationship either.

At the same time, the party Vidrodzhennia is located in the premises of a firm associated with Ihor Kolomoyskyi.

Reference:

For party financing in 2017 the state budget allocated 398 million hryvnias.

The NACP has already distributed these funds among political parties:

“People’s Front” – 114 million

“Petro Poroshenko Bloc ‘Solidarity’” – 112 million

“Samopomich” – 56 million

“Radical Party of Oleh Liashko” – 38 million

“Opposition Bloc” – 48,5 million

All-Ukrainian Union “Fatherland” – 29 million hryvnias