Blackmail with hungry army: what ultimatum did Ministry of Defense suppliers give?
There are only a few hours left until the deadline for submitting bids for the food procurement. Meanwhile, on Monday, the Ministry of Defense held a meeting to decide what to do to prevent the army from running out of food. Therefore, units were ordered to stockpile. At the same time, for the first time since 2022, the Ministry is going to conclude a direct food contract.
How did this happen and why? This is because the supplier companies that have held this market for 30 years are not interested in handing it over.
Through the decision of the Sixth Court of Appeal, they succeeded in having the criteria for preliminary tenders set by the State Logistics Operator (DOT) recognized as illegal. The decision was made by judges with property in Moscow and defendants in the "Vovk tapes".
Now, the tenders are actually announced according to the old requirements of the Defense Ministry's collegial body.
At the same time, suppliers are categorically not satisfied with the fact that applications from units will now be collected by the DOT, and they will not collect them directly from the units. Why? Because this is the main source of corruption, which the author wrote about the day before.
The SBI and the National Police recorded that the suppliers entered into a criminal conspiracy with representatives of military units, which resulted in a one-third reduction of the military's daily rations. At the same time, the military units and the supplier signed fake invoices, according to which they allegedly delivered goods that did not exist. Thus, the country's budget was embezzled by the companies of the Hlyniana group by UAH 5 million through one unit alone.
The current suppliers of the Ministry of Defense are not benefiting from the reform announced by the DOT - the transition to the purchase of certain food groups. This is because manufacturers want to enter these groups, who now give their products to the Ministry of Defense suppliers for nothing, and the latter make 26 to 187% of the profit.
How to prevent the loss of the market?
There is a high probability that the head of the DOT, Arsen Zhumadilov, will be fired within a week because of the failure to purchase food.
Then, as an option, they will try to replace Zhumadilov with a more loyal to suppliers (and a publicly known person) or annihilate the DOT altogether, under the pretext that it takes too much money and has a dubious result.
At the same time, the very idea of the reform is also under threat - it is currently being postponed to the fourth quarter, under the pretext that a separate resolution needs to be passed through the Cabinet of Ministers.
At the same time, an experiment is being prepared for the third quarter to purchase certain food groups, which may well show higher prices than now. Not without the influence of interested players.
Meanwhile, the players themselves have turned to direct blackmail of the Defense Ministry.
Atomservice, one of the largest suppliers of food to the Defense Ministry, is threatening not to participate in the next tender unless the conditions for participation are changed.
This is stated in the company's letter to Minister Rustem Umierov, his deputy Dmytro Klimenkov, and the head of the State Logistics Operator Arsen Zhumadilov.
"Atomservice is not satisfied with the fact that companies can apply for a maximum of 4 lots out of the announced ones. Although the requirement was established by a collegial body under the previous Defense Minister, it stipulates that no company should be given more than a third of the order in order not to jeopardize the army's supply.
"Atomservice is against the fact that the company should receive funds 50 days after the last delivery. However, in the previous weeks, the DOT was criticized in articles in the telegram channels for its desire to give prepayments to suppliers.
"Atomservice is not satisfied with the fact that the company will have to supply goods to other regions than those designated. Whereas the DOT wants to change the logic of supply so that military units transfer orders to it, and then determine which company is closer to supply.
"Atomservice is against the audit of the supplier's facilities. In addition, the company considers it illegal to impose a fine for failure to deliver the product on time.
The company also demands that food prices in the catalog be brought in line with market prices.
"If the comments of Atomservice LLC are not taken into account and the maximum prices in the Food Catalog are not brought in line with the current market prices as of the date of publication of the Announcement, Atomservice LLC is not ready and will not participate in the announced procedure for the procurement of food for the personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and will not be able to provide food to the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the future on the announced discriminatory terms," the letter says.
As you know, last year Atomservice won tenders for more than UAH 7 billion.
At the same time, law enforcement officers are investigating the facts of bribery of representatives of military units by the company's employees in order to substitute the ordered goods for cheaper ones.
The law enforcement officers have also already established that the terms of the contracts between the Ministry of Defense and VIISKSERVIS-VOLONTER LLC (No. 286/2/22/13) and ARMISET LLC (No. 286/2/22/41) differ significantly in the clauses on the need for the customer to approve the supply request with the contractor, given the availability of products in the contractor's warehouse.
The provisions of the other contracts did not provide for the obligation to approve the application with the contractor but rather imposed a fine on the supplier in the amount of 20% of the value of the undelivered products. In addition, both contracts did not contain a requirement for the customer's mandatory consent to the contractor's substitution of the ordered products and the imposition of additional costs on the contractor in this case.
These companies are also involved in the case of Kozlovskyi, a representative of the Logistics Forces Command.
It is also known that ARCHIMAHIR LLC (part of the same group as Atomservice), in violation of clause 7.4.1 of the Agreement of 09.08.2022 No. 286/2/22/51 and part one of Article 193 of the Commercial Code of Ukraine, failed to fulfill the requests of military units to the fullest extent.
Namely, it did not supply certain food products (in terms of quantity, assortment) totaling UAH 2,048,119.29, and at the same time, without the consent of the military units, supplied food products that the military units had not ordered for UAH 1,131,468.24.
Military units in violation of clause 7.3.6 of the Agreements with ARCHIMAHIR LLC did not draw up acts of breach of contractual obligations by the business entity, but accepted food that was not specified in the applications and included it in the acts of acceptance of food packages according to the Catalog.
There are similar complaints against other supplier companies. Therefore, it is very unfavorable for them to have non-fulfillment or violation of contracts with the Ministry of Defense among the qualification criteria.
The question now is whether the state will agree to blackmail a semi-criminalized group, or whether it will take measures to speed up the adoption of a resolution that is not written and is not considered binding by everyone, and whether it will respond to the call to retailers to provide supplies to the army (even through direct contracts) to remove the stranglehold of current suppliers from the army's neck.
Tetiana Nikolaienko, Censor.NET
