No high-profile case of corruption pressure on business has been closed - Manifesto 42
Not a single high-profile case of corrupt pressure on business, which is under the control of the Manifesto 42 civic movement, has been closed. The security forces continue to use criminal proceedings to extort bribes.
This was reported by the owners and top managers of Ukrainian enterprises at a roundtable organized by the Manifesto 42, Censor.NET reports with reference to Ekonomichna Pravda.
Ihor Mazepa, owner of Concord Capital, said that not a single official or law enforcement officer involved in the scandalous searches and detentions in January 2024 had been held accountable. The case has not yet been closed, and the property and documents seized during the "mask show" have not been returned.
"When you are detained without a decision of the investigating judge, when a search is conducted without a court order, when everything in sight is taken during the search, including documents of other companies, and then nothing is returned, I can state that it all looks very bad," Mazepa said.
The owner of EDS Ukraine, Oleksandr Zapyshnyi, said that the reason for the massive searches and seizure of funds by the SSU in late June 2024 was the information that one of the partner companies had done business in Russia before the large-scale invasion of 2022.
"They came to us on a case of alleged cooperation with Russia by another company, but for some reason, they took away the documents on our contract with Ukrzaliznytsia. And of course, they seized the money. I have been building this business for 15 years, and now I no longer have any desire to invest," Zapyshny said.
Viktor Moskovchenko, the owner of Medinova, said that the company's cash seized during the searches had disappeared from the safe of the prosecutor's office in Kyiv's Holosiivskyi district. The prosecutor, accused of stealing more than UAH 4 million, was released by the court on his own recognizance without bail.
"In March 2024, my co-workers and I were summoned to be notified of suspicion and given a week to 'settle' everything. We refused. There is still no suspicion in the case," Moskovchenko said.
Also, Pozhmashyna, Arricano Real Estate PLC, and X-Park reported no progress in closing high-profile cases at the roundtable. The Kyiv-based cafe chain Tikhe Mesto reported corruption pressure from the National Police.
The Manifesto 42 civic movement was created to defend Article 42 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to entrepreneurship.
