From Objections to Price Cuts: How DOZORRO Helped Save UAH 184 Million in July

UAH 184.2 million — that is how much TI Ukraine’s DOZORRO program shielded from potentially inefficient use in July. Work on some of these procurements had been under way for several months.

The bulk of this sum — UAH 161.1 million — came from reductions in contract value. A further UAH 16.2 million was saved by terminating contracts, and UAH 2.1 million by canceling procurements that were never re-announced. Information about a possible overpayment of another UAH 4.8 million was attached to an open criminal proceeding. For more detail on how DOZORRO calculates the amount of overpayments prevented, see our separate article.

Below are the three stories that stood out most among the DOZORRO team’s results in July.

Reconstruction of a building with a shelter in Kyiv Region

One of the fastest results in July came in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka. In late June, the Blahoustrii Municipal Enterprise of the Borshchahivka Village Council commissioned Tandem Tekhnobud LLC to reconstruct its administrative building for UAH 80.4 million. The building is to be reconstructed, a new wing added, and a shelter fitted out by December 20, 2026.

DOZORRO experts analyzed the cost estimate and found that prices might be inflated by UAH 7 million — nearly 9% of the contract value. The largest potential overpayments were on mineral wool, concrete, and facade paint.

In early July, the analysts sent Blahoustrii their calculations and asked it to review the prices. This could only be done by concluding an additional agreement, since the contract price was fixed. The response came quickly and without objections. The contracting authority thanked us for the analysis and reported that it had agreed on amendments to the contract with Tandem Tekhnobud.

There was no delay in making the changes: the parties signed an additional agreement and reduced the contract amount by UAH 7.2 million without cutting the scope of works. Prices were lowered on exactly the materials that DOZORRO experts had flagged for likely overpayments. 

Construction of a veterans’ space in Kryvyi Rih

The story of the veterans’ space in Kryvyi Rih unfolded differently. In September 2025, the Capital Construction Directorate of the city council’s executive committee signed a contract with Sapsan-KR LLC. The works were valued at UAH 132.2 million.

In February 2026, DOZORRO experts analyzed the cost estimate and found a possible overpayment of UAH 5.3 million. They sent the contracting authority their calculations and asked it to review the prices. Since the contract price was dynamic, the cost of materials could still be adjusted while the works were under way. 

The contracting authority, however, did not agree with DOZORRO’s conclusions. It cited a positive expert report and noted that our analysis did not take into account the terms of the tender documentation or the requirements of the Guidelines for Determining the Cost of Construction. As DOZORRO established, the expert review does not check the prices of construction materials, only the overall reasonableness of the costs.

While the correspondence continued, the contracting authority began paying for the works. So in May, we updated our calculations and turned to the prosecutor’s office. It replied that the National Police was already conducting a pretrial investigation. It remained unclear, however, whether DOZORRO’s calculations in particular had been added to that investigation.

To find out, in June we contacted the police separately. Law enforcement confirmed that the information from our request had been attached to the materials of an open criminal proceeding.

This is not the end of the story, but DOZORRO’s calculations have already become part of the pretrial investigation. In this case, UAH 4.8 million — the amount of the possible overpayment identified — was counted toward July’s total for preventing the potentially inefficient use of funds. 

Construction of an oncology center in Kharkiv

The largest share of July’s result relates to the completion of the Regional Oncology Center in Kharkiv. This story began back in October last year, when the Capital Construction Department of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration signed a UAH 3 billion contract with the Building Group consortium.

In January 2026, DOZORRO analysts reviewed the cost estimate and found that materials could be overpaid by UAH 144 million — nearly 5% of the contract’s initial value. The largest markups concerned brick, drywall, concrete, and rebar. At the same time, the contractor did not list delivery costs in the final bill of resources, so part of the gap with market prices could have been down to transportation.

The DOZORRO team contacted the department for clarification. We asked it to provide information on delivery costs, sent our calculations, and proposed reviewing the prices (at the time of our request, the likely overpayment stood at UAH 146 million). In its reply, the contracting authority did not provide information on delivery costs and disagreed with our conclusions. It stated that it had analyzed market prices on its own and that DOZORRO’s calculations supposedly failed to account for the security situation in Kharkiv Region and its proximity to the front line. After such a response, it might have seemed that the prices would not be reviewed. Yet in June, the contract value was reduced from UAH 3 billion to UAH 2.52 billion. 

The reduction in the total amount alone was not enough to count as a result of DOZORRO’s work. So, our experts compared material prices before and after the adjustment. The check showed that prices had indeed fallen on exactly the items we had raised in our request. For example, steel pipes dropped more than fivefold — from UAH 1,434.84 to UAH 253.61 per meter. 

The overall contract value was reduced by considerably more than the possible overpayment we had identified. However, only UAH 144 million — the amount of the markup calculated by DOZORRO analysts — was counted toward July’s result. 

The story did not end there. The contracting authority later signed a new contract with the same contractor for additional works. In its cost estimate, DOZORRO experts also found a possible overpayment of UAH 26.2 million. We have already contacted the contracting authority about this contract. 

The new contract does not undo the result on the previous one: the prices of the materials we considered inflated were indeed lowered. But it also does not mean that all the questions about the oncology center’s cost estimates have now been settled.

What we found in July

While earlier requests were producing results, DOZORRO experts were analyzing new procurements. In July, they reviewed 127 procurements with a total estimated value of UAH 10.8 billion.

Potential violations were found in 72 procurements:

• in 52 procurements, likely overpayments totaling UAH 493 million;
• in 20 procurements, other potential violations, including in the publication of documents, the choice of procedure, and the review of tender proposals.

Over the month, DOZORRO experts sent 63 requests to contracting authorities, oversight bodies, and law enforcement agencies. Whether these lead to price revisions, procurement cancellations, or other changes will become clear in the coming months. In total, since the start of 2026, the DOZORRO team has sent 365 requests and helped prevent the inefficient use of UAH 568 million. 

This material is funded by the European Union. Its content is the sole responsibility of Transparency International Ukraine and does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.