The port of Ust-Dunaisk has not yet been handed over to the new owner

The winning company of the auction for the privatization of the port of Ust-Dunaisk has not yet received the purchased objects for use.

The new owner still has not received the port’s assets for use due to an open criminal case and the refusal of the State Property Fund to sign the relevant act.

This was stated by a lawyer of the winning company “Elixir-Ukraine” at a conference dedicated to the fifth anniversary of the Prozorro.Prodazhi system, “Economichna Pravda” reports .

The company became the winner of the auction on January 17. “Elixir Ukraine” agreed to pay UAH 201 million for the lot — an amount that is three times more expensive than the starting price (UAH 60 million). The company reported that they paid the full amount to the state budget back in April.

The company’s lawyer said that the investor is ready to accept the object, invest and develop cargo flow and shipping on the Danube in the conditions of blocking the “grain corridor”.

“But there is an obstacle – a criminal case is immediately initiated for obvious reasons,” the speaker noted.

According to YouControl data, the State Property Fund remains the owner of the State Enterprise “MTP Ust-Dunaisk Sea Trade Port”. The port’s assets include: the port itself in the city of Vylkovo (Odesa region), the Kilia port office and the service base for special lighter vessels on Shabash Island.

Data from the court register show that this year there was a court decision regarding the port in a single criminal case No. 947/19824/23. The auction winning company does not appear in the case.

The main problem of the company was that the deed of acceptance and transfer of the object had not yet been signed. Accordingly, the investor “does not have the opportunity to get the object into operation and start operating the funds.”

The representative of Elixir Ukraine stated that the regional branch of the State Property Fund does not sign the act without the consent of the Antimonopoly Committee on concentration. The company believes that in this case such consent is not mandatory, according to the law, but admits that the officials “want to play it safe and require this consent.”

“And AMCU is starting an investigation that is incomprehensible to us, as a buyer. And according to the nature of the questions asked, there are no questions for the buyer. And the question is before how the state put the object up for privatization. From the point of view of how the AMCU asks the question, the project itself is in doubt in principle,” commented the representative of the company.