Accounting Chamber: War, fires and tree cutting cause almost UAH 23 bln in damage to Ukraine
An audit by the Accounting Chamber found that war, fires and illegal cutting of trees caused the state damage of almost UAH 23 billion, the department’s press service reported.
“Despite the presence of positive trends associated with the industry reform that began in 2022, there are still a number of problematic issues in the forestry and hunting sector of Ukraine, such as poor work on compensation for damage caused or insufficient control over asset accounting,” note the results of the audit of the efficiency of using budget funds aimed at forestry and hunting, conservation and protection of forests in the Forest Fund of Ukraine for 2020-2022 and the first half of 2023.
According to the report, during the audit it was established that during the specified period, UAH 1.9 billion were used from the state budget for the forestry and hunting sector, and forest users paid the state UAH 16 billion.
At the same time, 41.2 million cubic meters of wood and forest products were sold in Ukraine, of which 13.3 million cubic meters were sold to the population and social sector enterprises, 11.3 million cubic meters were exported, mainly to Romania, China and Hungary.
The audit showed that over three years, the profitability of State Forestry Agency enterprises increased fivefold, the value of assets and equity capital increased by more than 6.4 times, and the volume of equity capital increased by 30%. The number of unprofitable enterprises decreased from 17 with a loss of more than UAH 53 million in 2020 to six - UAH 43 million in 2022.
According to the reform that began in 2022, the property, rights and obligations of 146 forestry enterprises were transferred to the newly created state enterprise Forests of Ukraine. The number of territorial bodies of the State Forestry Agency was also reduced - from 24 to nine.
“The industry functions relatively well and shows good results, given the war situation. At the same time, internal control in the State Forestry Agency was not effective enough to prevent violations and ensure executive discipline. This led, in particular, to the loss of some documents, restored only after the completion of the audit at objects of control,” noted the member of the Accounting Chamber responsible for the audit, Viktor Bohun.
