19 millionaires from “Servant of the People” rent housing with budget funds

19 millionaires from “Servant of the People” rent housing with budget funds

In the TOP-5 richest deputies who rent housing, in addition to Trukhin, Kunaiev and Cherniavskyi from “Servant of the People,” the list also includes Urbanskyi from the For the Future group and Meidych from Fatherland. The Committee of Voters analyzed the declarations of people’s deputies who receive budget compensation for renting housing or hiring a hotel room, reports Glavkom. In total, in April 2020 the number of deputies who received budget compensation for housing rent was 52. According to the declarations, 25 of them are millionaires. That is, they own monetary assets (section 12 of the declarations) totaling more than one million hryvnias. This refers to cash funds and funds held in bank accounts. Data do not include monetary assets owned by deputies’ wives and husbands, nor do they include borrowed funds. Funds held in foreign currency were converted to hryvnia equivalents in the calculations. The vast majority of millionaire deputies who rent housing with budget funds are members of the Servant of the People faction. This concerns 19 persons. Among them: 1. Oleksandr Trukhin — declared 21,7 million UAH. 2. Artem Kunaiev — 9,9 million UAH. 3. Stepan Cherniavskyi — 9,6 million UAH. 4. Pavlo Yakymenko — 9,4 million UAH. 5. Oleksandr Saliychuk — 8,6 million UAH. 6. Yevhen Petruniak — 7 million UAH. 7. Oleksii Kovalov — 6,9 million UAH. 8. Fedor Venislavskyi — 6,8 million UAH. 9. Bohdan Torokhtii — 6,4 million UAH. 10. Andrii Kostin — 4, 8 million UAH. 11. Oleksandr Aliksiychuk — 4,3 million UAH. 12. Hennadii Kasai — 4,1 million UAH. 13. Oleksandr Horobets — 2,9 million UAH. 14. Hanna Lichman — 2,6 million UAH. 15. Artem Chornomorov — 2,5 million UAH. 16. Maksym Zuiev — 2 million UAH. 17. Eduard Proshchuk — 1,9 million UAH. 18. Dmytro Naltotov — 1,6 million UAH. 19. Olena Kopanchuk — 1,2 million UAH. Taking into account spouses’ monetary assets and borrowed funds, one should add Maksym Buzhanskyi (Servant of the People) to the list of millionaire deputies who rent housing with budget funds. The deputy’s declaration indicates 332 thousand dollars lent to third parties. Another 218 thousand dollars in cash is owned by his wife. Overall, millionaire deputies who receive housing compensation declared monetary assets totaling 162 million UAH. In the TOP 5 richest deputies who rent housing, in addition to Trukhin, Kunaiev and Cherniavskyi from Servant of the People, Anatolii Urbanskyi from the For the Future group (19,7 million UAH) and Oleh Meidych from VO Fatherland (9,8 million UAH) also made the list. “These figures show that every second deputy who receives compensation for housing rent is a millionaire. This means that such deputies could independently pay for accommodation in Kyiv without receiving budget funds. For example, in April 1,2 million UAH was spent on housing rent for deputies (an average of 20 thousand UAH per deputy). At the same time, total spending in April decreased due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In March 107 deputies received funds for housing rent, for which 2,3 million UAH was spent,” said CVU head Oleksii Koshel. “As for Servant of the People deputies, already in November 2019 the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, and one of the leaders of the mono-majority, Dmytro Razumkov, said that deputies could generally do without compensation for housing rent,” added Oleksii Koshel. According to part 2 of article 35 of the Law “On the Status of a People’s Deputy of Ukraine,” the right to receive compensation for lodging belongs to deputies who “are not provided with housing in the city of Kyiv, and their place of residence, according to their registration, is located at a distance of more than 30 km from the city limits of Kyiv.”