Analysts of the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine have identified the risk of inefficient use of international technical assistance funds allocated for the implementation of the program "Housing for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and Reconstruction of Liberated Cities in Ukraine".

The program provides for the construction and restoration of infrastructure facilities in 6 regions of Ukraine. In total, the Bureau's experts have studied 6 projects worth UAH 2.6 billion.

As a result of the analytical work, ESBU staff sent recommendations to local governments in Volyn, Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Lviv, Rivne, and Chernivtsi regions.

Thanks to the ESBU's recommendations and monitoring of the effectiveness of the use of international technical assistance funds, most regions have revised their design estimates and almost doubled the construction area.

For example, in one of the regions, an apartment building was planned to be built with an area of 4,000 m2, with an estimated cost of EUR 1.2 thousand per m2. However, after the recommendations were made, the total planned area of the building increased to 6,142 m2, and the cost per square meter decreased to 450 euros.

Work is underway to analyze other projects involving the use of both budgetary and European Union funds allocated for the country's reconstruction. In particular, analysts of the Economic Security Bureau are checking programs with a total estimated cost of 108.8 million euros.

Recently, detectives of the Territorial Office of the ESBU in the Zakarpattia region completed a pre-trial investigation into the misappropriation of more than UAH 2.2 million from international grant programs.