FDMU dismissed an official who exposed electricity theft at Kharkivoblenergo of 30 million per month

FDMU dismissed an official who exposed electricity theft at Kharkivoblenergo of 30 million per month

The former management of PJSC Ukrenergozbut discovered a scheme for stealing electricity from PJSC Kharkivoblenergo through underreported consumption amounting to approximately 30 million UAH per month.

This is reported in a piece by Oleksandr Chornovalov for the program Skhemy.

Reference: Kharkivoblenergo services more than 1,2 million households and over 33 thousand legal entities. As of early September, 65% of Kharkivoblenergo’s shares belong to the state represented by the State Property Fund; almost 25% to the Cypriot company Smart Holding, whose ultimate beneficiary is independent People’s Deputy Vadym Novynskyi; and 10% to minority shareholders. PJSC Kharkivenergozbut was created to collect payments from consumers.

In Kharkivenergozbut in August 2020, they noticed underreported electricity consumption for some enterprises. Conversely, volumes of consumption for household consumers rose abnormally.

At that time, acting CEO of Kharkivenergozbut, Ihor Tiupa, wrote a letter to the head of the State Property Fund, Dmytro Sennichenko. In it he urged intervention regarding possible electricity theft at Kharkivoblenergo. In the letter Tiupa named 18 private firms through which theft may have occurred, for a total of 5 million UAH.

But in reality the scale of the likely abuses is much greater.

“Statistically we found that about 30 million was lost or redistributed this way every month,” Tiupa said.

The State Property Fund did not respond to the letter from the head of Kharkivenergozbut. In response to Schemes’ inquiry, the Fund’s press service said that the FDMU in this situation dismissed the leaders of Kharkivoblenergo and Kharkivenergozbut. In fact, only the head of Kharkivenergozbut, who wrote the letter about possible electricity theft, was dismissed. And the head of Kharkivoblenergo has remained Konstantyn Lohvynenko since his appointment in March last year, appointed at the initiative of FDMU’s Dmytro Sennichenko. In April 2021 the Fund, at a shareholders’ meeting, rated the performance of Kharkivoblenergo’s top management as satisfactory. Although Novynskyi’s Smart Holding, which owns a stake in the oblast energy company, opposed this.

It also became known that the police are conducting an investigation into possible electricity theft at Kharkivoblenergo. The investigation established that Kharkivoblenergo officials, in collusion with private entrepreneurs, arranged a scheme in which metering devices recorded only 30% of the electricity actually consumed. In other words, the entrepreneurs were able to save on electricity payments.

According to Skhemy, one of the companies where Kharkiv law enforcement seized a meter — on suspicion that its operation had been tampered with — is LLC Firma Diana (Sumy market). Also on the list of legal entities with consumption below statistical indicators are LLC Fonten and LLC Brian of Rodion Haisynskyi (son of the late Kharkiv mayor Hennadii Kernes). These firms, in particular, own real estate and land under market stalls in the area of the Heroiv Pratsi metro station. Also involved are the AVEK & Co. concern of the family of People’s Deputy from OPZZh Oleksandr Feldman and Kharkivkholdmash, co-owned by the family of Vitalii Nemilostivyi.

Natalia Tkachuk, source: Nashi Hroshi