Sevastopol seaport is one of the largest non-freezing water areas. It is located in different bays of the city. There are berths intended for trade, for ship repair and for transport navigation. The largest industrial part of the port is located on the banks of the Kamysheva Bay — it is 28 hectares and 11 large berths with a total length of 1770 meters for ships of various types. It has everything you need — from grain storage terminals and cargo transshipment sites to ship repair.
Under Ukraine, Sevmorport annually transshipped almost 5 million tons of cargo. It could have been more, but there was not enough transport capacity. Then came Russia. And with it, sanctions. After the annexation of the peninsula, the indicators of cargo transshipment fell 15 times. The port began to deteriorate and turned into a deeply unprofitable enterprise, which has been on the verge of bankruptcy for several years. “Taking the opportunity”, the officials were slowly selling off the property of the port. And as a result, criminal cases appeared.
On the evening of January 12 of the current year, it became known that employees of the Investigative Committee and the FSB conducted searches in the State Unitary Enterprise «Sevastopol Sea Port» with the seizure of documents. Whether someone from the defendants in the cases was detained, the Novaya Investigative Committee refused to report, citing the secrecy of the investigation. The government of the region assures that the head of Sevmorport, Yuri Baranov, was not detained by security forces and will not be fired while the check is underway. The Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, in turn, clarified that a new criminal case had been opened against the leadership of the State Unitary Enterprise «Sevastopol Sea Port» on concealment and non-payment of taxes. According to the investigation, the port authorities, instead of paying taxes and fees, allegedly decided to pay off part of the creditors through the accounts of third parties. In particular, it is reported about the concealment of the amount of income from March to November 2021 in the amount of 4 million rubles.
It seems to be a small amount even by the standards of the Sevastopol budget. But this is only a link in the chain. And if you look at the economic indicators of the State Unitary Enterprise, then the interest of the security forces becomes obvious.
According to SPARK, at the end of 2020, Sevmorport showed a loss of 122 million rubles, and the total debt amounted to 150 million rubles. There are no reports for 2021 yet, but dozens of lawsuits from port creditors show that debts are only increasing, penalties are growing. Over the past two years, the company's profitability has fallen especially dynamically. The company's employees are being cut, but at the same time, commercial and administrative expenses in relation to revenue show an increase of 93.87%, while the net profit rate, on the contrary, decreased by 61.83%.
If translated from the language of economics, then the port is on the verge of bankruptcy, and salaries and expenses for the port management continue to grow.
Photo6 Aleksey Pavlishak/TASS
This is not the first time that the port of Sevastopol has been at the center of a corruption scandal. In January 2019, the port with all its property — ships, berths, tugboats, storage and administrative premises — could be sold for just 10 rubles.
For example, 1,200 port facilities were valued at 1 kopeck — this is how much, for example, a floating dock, a repair shop, non-residential buildings, 20 berths cost.