“Concentration camp for animals”: In Sevastopol there is a corruption-knacker scandal
A scandal surrounding an animal shelter, for which 22 million rubles are allocated from the budget a year, broke out in Sevastopol. Local animal rights activists discovered that the animals were being kept in appalling conditions (some looked like living skeletons), and the money was apparently being written off on paper and distributed into the pockets of participants in the corruption scheme.
The NTS television channel (part of Alexey Chaly’s media holding) showed a story about the mass death of dogs in a shelter. “These dozens of puppies were healthy. And then they get sick with enteritis, and they are wiped out without exception. Moreover, out of hunger they eat dead relatives. It happened before my eyes and in front of one more volunteer,” animal activist Tatyana Dmitricheva said on air.
The tender for working with homeless animals for 2020 was won by the Sevastopol Law Center company. The customer of the services was the municipal institution “Parks and Squares”.
After the story was published, representatives of the city authorities and the prosecutor’s office arrived at the shelter and began an investigation.
Social activist Elena Golubeva notes that even by the name of the company that won the contract for the animal shelter, it was initially clear that there was work for law enforcement officers.
“Why did the Sevastopol Law Center suddenly take up dogs? Well, it would be more logical if it were not him, but an association of animal defenders who every day catch and sterilize and feed and treat, collecting pennies from good citizens. Where and what was the logic of Parks and Squares, which entrusted the execution of this contract to Geftman?” – comments Golubeva.
Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev, after the uproar in the media, promised to punish those responsible. The head of Parks and Squares was fired from his position.
The head of the contracting company, Andrei Geftman, in a comment to Sevastopolskaya Gazeta, stated that the story shown on the local TV channel was ordered - they say, the animals are fed twice a day, the enclosures are cleaned from morning until lunch, and the film crew and volunteers arrived precisely at a time when the dogs were still hungry and the enclosures were uncleaned. He explained the whole situation by the machinations of competitors who are engaged in discrediting the shelter in the fight for millions of government contracts.
One way or another, concerned residents of Sevastopol have already begun to take animals from the shelter, not believing the promises of officials and businessmen to rectify the situation. According to social activist Tatyana Bolshakova, there are still 129 dogs in the Geftman company’s enclosures.
“City residents and volunteers are gradually taking animals from the shelter on Monastyrskoe Highway. First of all, they take them to veterinarians, and they note the unhealthy state of the majority. Several animals have already died. History of pneumonia, bronchitis, etc. All documents will be submitted with an application to the Ministry of Internal Affairs... the animals are in a poorly heated room with cement floors that are not dried after wet cleaning,” Bolshakova said.
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