Scheme for 246 million hryvnias: the Ministry of Defense stole money in the "Bell" app for the Armed Forces - NABU

It is about abuse during the development of the automated system of the Center of Operational Management of the Armed Forces "Bells", the National Anti -Corruption Bureau (NABU) reported.

Detectives are suspected of theft of the former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, the exchanger of the Armed Forces Communication troops, the exchanger of the Department for the Development of Automation of the General Staff and the director of a private company, the main executor of the contract. The investigation found that in 2016, the Defense Ministry concluded a contract for the development of a system with an organization without the experience of creating software.

In four years of development, the technical task was changed 13 times, which is why the cost of the work increased by UAH 300 million. NABU emphasizes the unjustified increase in the number of experimental samples from 4 to 12. This has led to additional costs of UAH 115 million for documentation adjustment. The manufactured system was absolutely not in line with the technical task: there was a incompatibility with NATO protocols and the lack of integration with other military systems.

Some of the software was not used at all: only 10 were seated from the laid-out information and settlement tasks. Detectives and prosecutors of the SAP, as they say in NABU, were confronted with attempts to interfere with the investigation. The accused wanted to hide key documentation on the financing and development of the project. After the investigation, the experts accelerated the work, modernized the system for free and tried to fit it under the initial design.

As a result, they made fundamental errors in architecture, and the revision of the "bell" system is impossible. And in 2024, instead of eliminating the shortcomings or abandoning the inefficient application, the "bell" wanted to allocate additional money. NABU is convinced that this indicates an attempt to continue corruption. Recall that in China, they were sentenced to death for the corruption of the former Vice President of the State Bank of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China.