In our second article on the use of funds from the COVID-Fund, we decided to look into how key managers spend these funds.

A few weeks ago, we told you about how the money from the COVID-19 Response Fund is being spent. We thoroughly researched and provided an insight into the expenditure of funds from the fund by such structures as the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture, the Ministry of Social Policy, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Community and Territorial Development.

Today we will tell you about key fund managers of the COVID-19 Response Fund. Why key? Because these ministries received the largest amount of money from the Fund.

Ministry of Internal Affairs

According to Government Decision No. 485 of June 10, 2020, additional funds in the amount of UAH 2.7 billion were allocated from the COVID-19 Response Fund for the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.

According to the response of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the request of the StateWatch journalist, as of August 14, 2020 the total amount of cash expenditures from these funds amounted to 1 billion 960 million hryvnias.

From these funds:

• Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs received additional payments to salaries totaling 109 million hryvnias.
• Employees of the State Border Guard Service received additional payments to salaries totaling UAH 50 million.
• Employees of the National Guard of Ukraine received additional payments to salaries totaling 48 million hryvnias.
• Employees of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine received additional payments to salaries totaling 17 million hryvnias.

Employees of the National Police of Ukraine received the largest amount. The total amount of salary supplements of police officers amounted to 1 billion 734 million hryvnias.

Before this article was published, we decided to update the information and check the cash expenditures of the Ministry of Internal Affairs as of September 22. According to the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, as of the end of September, cash expenditures from the Covid-Fund in the Ministry of Internal Affairs amounted to 2 billion 540 million hryvnias. That is, the Ministry of Internal Affairs has already spent 94% of all funds allocated to it from the Covid-Fund.

Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine

It is not a secret that the largest amount from the COVID-19 Response Fund, namely 35 billion hryvnias, was allocated for road repairs. According to the website of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, the Ministry of Infrastructure is the main administrator of these funds. We also learned about the amount of money already spent. As we can see from the chart, out of 35 billion hryvnias, almost 10 billion hryvnias or 28% of the total amount have already been used as of September 22.

Ministry of Health

And now the most interesting. We sent a request to the Ministry of Health on August 14. In the request, we asked the same questions as all other ministries. We wanted to find out how the process of appropriating and spending the funds allocated from the COVID-19 Response Fund was going. However, the ministry decided to ignore us. Moreover, we called the ministry for several days in a row to inquire whether they received our request, but they also decided not to answer the phone calls. So, to find out exactly how the Ministry of Health spends coronavirus funds, we visited the website of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine.

According to the Ministry of Finance, 14 billion 345 million hryvnias were allocated to MoH from the COVID-19 Response Fund. However, as of September 22, only 3.6% of funds, or UAH 514 million, were spent from these funds. In total, the Ministry of Health received funds under four different components:

• Purchase of ventilators.
• Provision of the Ministry of Health laboratories and purchase of personal protective equipment.
• Equipment for reception departments of support hospitals.
• Increase of allowances and additional payments for medical workers.

Of all these programs, funds were spent only on the component “Provision of the Ministry of Health laboratories and the purchase of personal protective equipment.” All other programs still have zero cash expenditures. To understand the absurdity of the situation, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as of the end of August, only the National Police of Ukraine received 1 billion 734 million hryvnias in salary supplements from the COVID-19 Response Fund from the beginning of quarantine. In turn, despite the fact that the Ministry of Health has allocated almost 6 billion hryvnias to increase allowances and additional payments for health workers, 0% of these funds were allocated as of September 22.

State Administration of Affairs

Well, and what about the State Administration of Affairs? Earlier we said that the notorious State Administration of Affairs also received funds from the COVID-19 Response Fund. The total amount of funds allocated to the State Administration of Affairs amounted to UAH 41 million. In response to our request about how much and what they spent the money on, the SAA decided not to respond but only said that they would report to the Ministry of Finance and the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Budget. However, according to the information available on the website of the Ministry of Finance, as of September 22, the SAA has already spent 11 million hryvnias (26% of all funds) on the purchase of equipment and personal protective equipment.

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The total amount of funds allocated from the fund amounted to 65 billion 959 million hryvnias. As of September 22, 23 billion 796 million hryvnias were spent from these funds, which is 36% of the total amount. In this case, why did the fund amount to as much as 65 billion hryvnias, if these funds did not require urgent implementation? There are also many questions as to why the funds allocated directly to the Ministry of Health have not yet been spent. This looks especially strange compared to the situation with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which has already spent almost all the funds on additional payments to its employees. Do doctors need less? Unfortunately, the Ministry of Health has decided not to answer our questions, so now there are only more. StateWatch, for its part, will continue to monitor how and where our funds will be spent.

Oleksandr Humeniuk, within the framework of the StateWatch project with the support of the Public Health program initiative of the International Renaissance Foundation.