Yesterday, September 6, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine adopted a resolution “On the implementation of a pilot project on the organization of electronic auctions with the use of an e-commerce system Prozorro.Sale”. By this decision, the Cabinet gave the green light for state enterprises, institutions and organizations to voluntarily join Prozorro. Participation in the project will allow selling assets through a simpler procedure and with lesser corruption risks. According to Maksym Nefyodov, First Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine, this is a new stage in reforming the system of state assets sales. “The resolution applies to state-owned and municipal enterprises, various types of property and facilities. […] We expect that it will help companies to significantly clean up their balance sheets and get the money that can be used for their own production needs, for reconstruction. We will be able to see how and where these assets go. We expect that as a result, this will provide for the whole market for such property. This is an opportunity for businesses to get a new investment platform,” he said at a press briefing at Ukraine Crisis Media Center.
Leonid Antonenko, deputy of Kyiv City Council, head of Commission on Property, said that next week the City Council will consider the proposal to make Prozorro.Sale the only possible way to sell the municipal property. The draft decision was signed by deputies of all factions, although the administration opposes this decision. “We have sold the property for more than UAH 100 million in Kyiv alone. This is quite a lot of money, and it could be doubled or tripled if the privatization of this property was done in a transparent manner. Therefore, we welcome the initiative of the Cabinet of Ministers,” he said. However, in his opinion, the sole transition to electronic sales is not enough to reform the sale of state assets; the qualification requirements for candidates should also be simplified to narrow the space for nepotism.
Oleksiy Soboliev, Project Manager at ProZorro. Sale reminded that some enterprises have decided to join the system before the decision of the Cabinet of Ministers. One of them is NPC “Ukrenergo”. “Currently, we have sold Ukrenergo’s assets for UAH 21 million, and plan to sell some more assets at the expected value of UAH 41 million by the end of the year. Our experience made it possible to raise the expected value by 25-30% than the assessed value. Moreover, through ProZorro.Sale we usually make another 12% more during the auction. […] If the customer is willing to do this, the incomes of state institutions can increase 2.5 times,” informed Vsevolod Kovalchuk, Acting Director of the National Energy Company “UKRENERGO.” He appealed to the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade for a solution for enterprises that have unnecessary property but have no right to sell it on their own.
“We hope that both the government’s resolution, future legislative changes and further simplification of the procedure for selling off assets […] will allow them to receive liquid capital for that property. We hope that the project will develop further and the Verkhovna Rada will not let it down,” noted Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, Executive Director at Transparency International Ukraine.