The head of a department of the State Bureau of Investigation, whose family has acquired real estate worth UAH 35 million in recent years, continues to use the service apartment from his prosecutorial past. Slidstvo.Info found that in 2024, Oleksandr Hovorushchak’s family moved into a new house in the Kyiv suburbs, owned by the official’s wife. Despite working in another department and having his own home, the Prosecutor General’s Office does not plan to return the service apartment, which could be used by other prosecutors who do not have their own homes.
Service apartment
The residential complex in the Vynohradar residential area of Kyiv, where Oleksandr Hovorushchak, the head of the department of the State Bureau of Investigation, lives, was built in 2017. At the same time, Hovorushchak, who held the position of prosecutor of the Priority Assignments Division of the Department of Particularly Important Cases of the Department of International Legal Cooperation of the Prosecutor General’s Office, began to declare the use of a 76.5 square metre service apartment in the new building. Currently, a renovated apartment of a similar size in this residential complex in Vynohradar costs more than UAH 4 million.
Residential complex in the Vynohradar residential area of Kyiv
After three years of using official housing from the prosecutor’s office, in his 2020 declaration, Oleksandr Hovorushchak indicated a salary from the State Bureau of Investigation, where he probably joined the staff at that time. A year earlier, he failed to pass his performance appraisal and was dismissed from his position at the Prosecutor General’s Office, but we’ll talk about that in a moment.
Getting a position in the State Bureau of Investigation did not prevent Hovorushchak from continuing to use the apartment he received from the prosecutor’s office. As previously established by Slidstvo.Info journalists, in 2023, his wife Kateryna Hovorushchak, who also works at the State Bureau of Investigation, bought a new house and land near Kyiv.
The house near Kyiv
The journalists spoke to the couple’s neighbours, who said that the Hovorushchaks moved into the house, which together with the land could cost up to UAH 14.5 million, in late summer 2024.
The Hovorushchaks
The journalists also observed a white HONDA CR-V leaving the yard, which is the car Kateryna Hovorushchak owns, according to the official’s declaration.
Following the publication of this information, Slidstvo.Info journalists contacted the Prosecutor General’s Office to ask about the service apartment that Hovorushchak received from the department in 2017 and which, according to his declaration, he still uses. As a reminder, officials who do not have their own housing are entitled to receive official housing.
The Prosecutor General’s Office replied that a request had been sent to the Department of Registration of the executive body of the Kyiv City Council and it was found that the place of registration of Oleksandr Hovorushchak’s family had not changed.
The Office of the Prosecutor General notes that according to the Housing Code of Ukraine, persons who have worked for at least ten years in the institution that provided them with the service premises cannot be evicted from their accommodation without being provided with another accommodation.
‘Given that Mr Hovorushchak’s work experience in the prosecution service exceeds 10 years, the Prosecutor General’s Office has no legal grounds to evict him from his service accommodation without providing another one’, the Prosecutor General’s Office replied to journalists’ questions about whether the government agency planned to return the service apartment back to the department.
The response suggests that the Prosecutor General’s Office did not take into account the fact that Hovoroshchuk’s family had bought a new house in the Kyiv suburbs and that the official was living there.
Antonina Volkotrub, an analyst at the Anti-Corruption Action Centre, said in a comment to Slidstvo.Info that continuing to use a service apartment while having a house in the Kyiv suburbs is a matter of ethics for the official. ‘Perhaps there are prosecutors who have moved and who really need housing. I wonder if he actually lives there. If not, then this is another question, why does he continue to use it? Given how many people are now homeless, given the war… And here is a man who has a place to live,’ Volkotrub concluded.
Hovorushchak himself did not respond to journalists’ calls and messages.
Dismissal from the prosecutor’s office
According to Slidstvo.Info, Oleksandr Hovorushchak started working in the prosecution service in 2011. After 8 years, Hovorushchak failed to pass the certification, after which he was dismissed by the decision of the Personnel Commission No. 4 ‘On the unsuccessful completion of the prosecutor’s certification’ and the order of the Prosecutor General No. 2070c of 21.12.2019.
The man filed a lawsuit with the Kyiv District Administrative Court (KDAC) to declare the dismissal decisions unlawful and to cancel them. In 2021, first the KDAC and then the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal recognised the personnel commission’s decision and the Prosecutor General’s order as unlawful and cancelled them. Hovorushchak was reinstated to the position he held at the time of his dismissal. Moreover, the Prosecutor General’s Office paid Hovorushchak UAH 1.5 million in compensation for his forced absence. Interestingly, Hovorushchak was already working at the State Bureau of Investigation at the time.
In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned the previous decisions and ruled to recover UAH 395,000 from the prosecutor’s office for forced absenteeism (instead of UAH 1.5 million, according to previous court decisions).
As it becomes clear from the response of the Prosecutor General’s Office to the request of Slidstvo.Info, Oleksandr Hovorushchak did not return the difference between the amount (UAH 1.5 million) he received according to the KDAC decision of 08.02.2021 and the amount he was supposed to receive (UAH 395 thousand) according to the Supreme Court ruling of 05.07.2022. It seems that Oleksandr Hovorushchak received both payments.
But that’s not all. In 2021, the Office of the Prosecutor General paid Oleksandr Hovorushchak another UAH 1.8 million: compensation for unused 55 days of leave, compensation for the delay in full payment upon dismissal from military service, a one-time allowance of 50% of the monthly salary for each full calendar year of service, taking into account the monetary remuneration of military personnel of military prosecutor’s offices for participation in the anti-terrorist operation.
In other words, within a few years after his dismissal, Oleksandr Hovorushchak received UAH 3.7 million in various compensations from the Prosecutor General’s Office. In addition, Oleksandr Hovorushchak continues to use his service apartment, the market value of which is over UAH 4 million, despite the presence of a country house where he and his wife live. The Prosecutor General’s Office sees no reason to stop the former employee’s use of company property.
The video has English subtitles.
