The mayor of Tulchyn, Vinnytsia Oblast, a representative of Groysman's Ukrainian Strategy, Valeriy Vesnianyi, who is suspected of causing almost three million hryvnias in damage to the community budget, is blocking the allocation of funds to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The relevant information was made public in an appeal to Vinnytsia Oblast Prosecutor Oleksiy Khymchenko by Yuriy Shveybysh, a member of the Tulchyn City Council and deputy chairman of the budget committee. The appeal was published by the local edition "33rd Channel", UNN writes.
Details
According to the deputy, Tulchyn's budget for the next year planned to allocate almost 25.5 million hryvnias to support the Armed Forces. The community also had a surplus of UAH 34 million, which was also planned to be allocated for the same purposes.
However, a different draft budget was submitted to the session, with a deficit of UAH 32 million.
"This was done deliberately so that instead of allocating free balances for the needs of the Armed Forces, 32 million could be used to create a far-fetched deficit. Therefore, the deputies did not support such a fraudulent budget," writes Yuriy Shveybysh.
The deputy notes that a new draft budget has been developed with the same amount of money to support the Ukrainian army. However, he believes that Valeriy Vesnianyi is deliberately taking actions to prevent the community budget from being adopted. In particular, he involves his subordinates in this.
"While on sick leave in the Tulchyn Central District Hospital, Valeriy Vesnianyi exerts pressure on the deputies by involving his subordinate employees. Thus, the secretary of the executive committee, Hennadiy Pryimak, gathered the heads of departments of the Tulchyn City Council, who came to the meeting of the deputy budget commission without an invitation during working hours, demanding monthly bonuses and all other allowances, threatening them with dismissal," the deputy chairman of the budget commission said in his appeal.
In his opinion, all this is being done solely to block the allocation of funds to support the Armed Forces. Therefore, he asks law enforcement officers to intervene in the situation
"All these actions of pressure on MPs and discrediting them are carried out in order not to adopt the new draft budget for 2024, deliberately creating a collapse. And, as a result, there is "zero" for the needs of the Armed Forces.
Therefore, I ask you to bring to justice the head of the Tulchyn City Council, Valeriy Vesnianyi, for deliberately obstructing the work of the council," concludes Shveybysh.
Context
On January 22, a court imposed a pre-trial restraint on Valeriy Vesnianyi, mayor of Tulchyn, Vinnytsia Oblast, from the party of former Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman. The man is suspected of abusing his official position and causing damage to the city budget of almost three million hryvnias. Vesnianyi was sent to custody for 54 days with the possibility of posting 800 thousand hryvnias in bail.
However, Valeriy Vesnyanyi was not removed from his duties as mayor.
Valeriy Vesnianyi has been the permanent mayor of Tulchyn since 2006. In 2020, he ran for this position from Groysman's Ukrainian Strategy.
According to law enforcement, in the fall of 2021, without an auction, approval from the executive committee and the land commission of the city council, Vesnianyi actually single-handedly granted 68 hectares of land for use to a local sugar factory.
According to regulatory calculations, Tulchyn's budget lost almost three million hryvnias due to non-payment of land use rent.