Odesa plans to spend almost ₴25 million to upgrade street lighting

Odesa plans to spend almost 25 million hryvnias to modernise the lighting of its main streets. The municipal enterprise «Odesmisksvitlo» has announced four tenders to replace 379 lamps and 108 poles.

This was reported by the local newspaper «Dumska».

The works are planned in the following areas:

• Krasnova Street (from Srednefontanska Square to Tolbukhin Square);
• Serednofontanska Street;
• Lustdorfska Road (from Tolbukhin Square to the 3rd station);
• Railway station square.

According to Oleksandr Prokopets, director of the municipal enterprise «Odesmisksvitlo», the old lamps, which consume a lot of electricity, will be replaced with new LED lamps that use three times less energy. Only the central lights will remain on Lustdorfska Road, with their height increased from 9 to 12 metres, which will improve lighting at night. All the wires will be laid underground so that they are not affected by weather conditions.

Regarding the cost recovery, Prokopets stressed that the main goal of the project is to improve the quality of lighting for the comfort and safety of residents. This is a continuation of the work started two years ago, when the replacement of lanterns in the city centre and Peresypskyi district saved about ten million hryvnias annually.

Applications for the tender will be accepted until 10 May, with auctions scheduled for 12 May.

Corruption in the procurement of street lighting for Mykolaiv

On 9 April, it became known that Serhii Bezdolnyi, who works for the municipal enterprise «Self-supporting Construction Mechanisation Section» (hereinafter referred to as the SCMS), and Vasyl Protsyshyn, a businessman from Lviv region, were notified of suspicion of misappropriation of budget funds. He is charged with an offence under Part 4 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. He faces a prison sentence of 5 to 8 years. In addition to working at the utility company, Serhii Bezdolnyi is the brother of Dmytro Bezdolnyi, Director of the Housing and Communal Services Department of Mykolaiv City Council.

According to law enforcement officers, during the purchase of 65 street lighting control cabinets worth over 5.3 million hryvnias, the budget of Mykolaiv lost almost 600,000 hryvnias due to the so-called «kickbacks» — 13% of the amount excluding VAT.

The director of Mykolaiv's Department of Housing and Communal Services, Dmytro Bezdolnyi, previously told NikVesti that he was considering resigning from his post for the duration of the investigation due to the suspicion served on his relative. It is worth noting that the wife of the director of Mykolaiv's housing and communal services department also works for the utility company where his brother is suspected of corruption.

The mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Sienkevych, promised to cooperate with the investigation in the case of corruption in street lighting.

On 15 April, the Vitovskyi District Court of Mykolaiv imposed a pre-trial restraint on suspected corrupt utility worker Serhii Bezdolnyi in the form of arrest with the possibility of bail in the amount of over 4.9 million hryvnias. As it turned out during the hearing, the Department of Internal Financial Control, Supervision and Anti-Corruption of Mykolaiv approved a tender for the purchase of 65 street lighting cabinets at an inflated price in September 2024.

The court also ruled to compulsorily bring the suspect Vasyl Protsyshyn to the court hearing.

On 15 April, the prosecution filed a motion to compel the attendance of Protsyshyn, who lives in Drohobych, Lviv region.

However, Protsyshyn did not appear at the hearing on 22 April. The court learned that his whereabouts are currently unknown, but he has not crossed the state border.