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August 23, 2023The Ukrainian state-owned enterprise “Energoatom” has once again been embroiled in a scandal involving procurements for employees of the seized Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. This time, instead of boots and potatoes, a tender for gloves was announced and conducted last autumn.
Member of Ukrainian Parliament Yaroslav Zheleznyak reported this in his Telegram channel.
According to him, before the occupation of the nuclear power plant, glove procurements for the staff were conducted on a smaller scale.
In September 2022, a tender was announced on the Prozorro platform for the purchase of rubber and cotton gloves for Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant employees, which was seized by Russians on March 4, 2022. The tender was successfully concluded on October 4 of the same year for a sum of 7,115,418 hryvnias, including VAT (near 175,5 thousand euro).
The parliament member noted that the glove prices stated in the contract were inflated by about 40-60% compared to market prices. Furthermore, the manufacturer of the gloves specified in the contract was the most expensive on the market.
Zheleznyak questioned the legitimacy of the purchase of 83,602 pairs of gloves for the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in September 2022 for 7.1 million hryvnias and pointed out that the volume of purchases was lower a year before the war.
“I won’t even guess what excuse they will come up with this time regarding the price. We’ve already seen it with the boots, very special ones. Just for understanding, in 2021, when ZAEZ was not occupied and was operating at full capacity, they purchased 83,000 pairs of gloves less in a year,” he wrote and noted that he’s awaiting a new explanation from “Energoatom.”
It’s worth noting that after the statements by the parliament member about the previous tender for the purchase of boots for employees of the seized Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, “Energoatom” provided an explanation. According to them, despite the nuclear station being captured by the Russians, all obligations for its maintenance still remain with the Ukrainian side. They indeed delivered some of the footwear and other items that were procured to the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.