It is no secret that the highest authorities are serviced by entire car fleets. Dozens, if not hundreds, of cars are registered on the balance sheet of the Verkhovna Rada, DUS, and the Cabinet of Ministers. The maintenance of these vehicles costs a pretty penny every year and is, of course, financed from the budget. Journalists of the Schemes project thoroughly studied this topic and detailed the fleets of the main state bodies.
Verkhovna Rada
As of May 1, 2020, the fleet of the Verkhovna Rada consists of 187 cars.
Cars here range from Mercedes-Benz to KamAZ. In 2018, 18 million hryvnias were allocated for their maintenance, in 2019 – 20 million, and for the first quarter of 2020 – 4.6 million.
NSDC
Twenty cars are attached to the NSDC, which includes both Toyota Land Cruiser and Volkswagen Touareg, as well as a truck Iveco. Annually, more than 2 million hryvnias are spent on them.
State Affairs Administration
The State Affairs Administration (the very DUS) has 232 vehicles attached.
They serve the president and his office. Various models of Mercedes-Benz, Range Rover, BMW, Toyota, Volkswagen, Skoda, and Ford are registered there.
Cabinet of Ministers
The Cabinet of Ministers did not provide overall statistics and spread out the cars across individual ministries. In total, there are more than three dozen. Most cars (11) service the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
There are both a Mercedes S500 and a tractor for cleaning sidewalks. Eight vehicles are on the balance sheet of the Ministry of Justice, five of which are crossovers and SUVs. The oldest is an Infiniti FX45 2004, and the newest is a Skoda Superb 2013.
The Ministry of Economy has only four cars. However, they are not particularly modern – they are 15-18 years old.
The Ministry of Defense has only three vehicles, and they are not new either. However, 232 thousand hryvnias were spent on them last year.
The fleet of the Ministry of Finance is the most innovative since last year two Hyundai Ioniq Electric electric cars were purchased. Interestingly, not a penny was spent on their maintenance last year, while in four months of 2020 – 3564 hryvnias.
In four more ministries (education, community and territorial development, energy, and veterans affairs) only one vehicle is registered in each.