Slate Factory Director, His Deputies Detained In Krychau

They came to the enterprise after Lukashenka signed the directive "On the inadmissibility of price rises".

The prosecutor's office of Krychau district instituted criminal proceedings against the director of Krychau enterprise and his two deputies for selling products with an inflated markup. The case was initiated under the article on abuse of authority (Part 2 Article 424 of the Criminal Code), reports the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office.

The law enforcers made the claim following an inspection carried out by the Financial Investigation Department of the State Control Committee.

According to the materials of the case, the company, which produces slate, did not comply with the maximum margin of profitability in determining the selling price of products. It is included in the selling price in the amount of 15% of the planned cost of production and sales. But the company's management set the markup for the slate at 20% to 107% of the planned production cost. To conceal it, as far back as July 2022, the management was discussing the need to increase the planned prime cost for the already sold goods in the accounting system, says the prosecutor's office.

When Lukashenka signed the directive "On the inadmissibility of price increase" on October 11th the suspects started to add the increased target prime cost to the "1C-Bookkeeping", canceled the commercial invoices and introduced fictitious data about the expenses. More than 1,500 documents were falsified, says the press release.

In addition, the company did not have a certificate for some of its products, although it was obliged to have certificates for everything it produced as it was exempt from income tax on sales of goods of its own manufacture.

The director and two deputies were detained under Article 108 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, i.e. on direct suspicion of a crime (they are to be charged or released in three days). One of the three has already been taken into custody (it is not specified who).

The prosecutor's office does not give the full name of the company, only an abbreviated version: K. Ltd. Most likely it refers to KMB-Uskhod Ltd. It is a private company that has been operating since 2017 and produces different types of slate. It employs about 130 people. In August 2022, KMB-Uskhod bought a part of the old cement plant from the state-owned Krychaucementnoshifer, which it had previously rented. The territory of the old factory had been vacant; Lukashenka ordered to divide it into investment sites and sell it off and KMB-Uskhod became the first investor. The director of the private company is Stanislau Sivakou.