Izhevskyi R. Prevention of illegal use of budget funds in the construction of roads.

The dissertation is devoted to research of criminological nature of the phenomenon of illegal use of budget funds at construction of highways, definition of the reasons and conditions which generate and cause it, and development on this basis of a complex of measures of general social and special criminological prevention of criminal manifestations of this phenomenon. The paper provides a general description of the road sector and technologies of works used for repair and construction of highways. The general tendencies of development of road sector of Ukraine for the last thirty years are established. The composition of the subjects of public highway management, their powers and competence are found out. Attention is drawn to the flaws and miscalculations in the work of budget managers - Ukravtodor and local (regional) state administrations. It is stated that the main part of budget funds is allocated for the performance of current and capital repairs of highways, which are carried out on economically unreasonable and poorly controlled technologies of road works. The criminological assessment of the mechanism of financing of road works is carried out. It was found that the most fragile to criminal assaults are the stages of distribution (14.8%) and use (68.6%) of public finances. It is proved that the centralized order of budget funds management has actually led to the «hand» management of financial resources used for the development and operation of road infrastructure. It turns out that the administrator, executor and recipient of budget funds, in most cases, are entities that belong to the structure of Ukravtodor or subordinate, related agencies or affiliates. Attention is paid to the economically unprofitable distribution and use of budget funds in the field of highways construction, as most of the public finances are directed to the current repair of roads of national and local importance, which creates conditions for official abuse and corruption of managers and recipients of budget funds. Almost 60 billion UAH (72%) allocated in 2020 for road works on roads of national importance was used to finance current repairs. Based on the provisions of the criminological theory of criminal activity, the concept of crimes related to the illegal use of budget funds in the construction of highways is formulated. According to the criterion of criminal activity, six groups of crimes related to the illegal use of budget funds in the construction of highways have been identified. The research of the state of crime in sphere of the use of budget funds in the construction of highways has allowed establish the following trends. From 2015 to 2018 year the number of reported crimes related to the illegal use of budget funds in the construction of roads increased 2.5 times (+253,6%). The intensification of criminal activity and a sharp increase of the level of crime is explained by an increase in national expenditures for this period by 14 times (+1402,5%). The small share of investigated crimes (3.9%) among all registered criminal offenses related to illegal use of budget funds is explained by their high and especially high latency. Criminal encroachments are relatively more often committed during road works on local roads (52.2%). In the structure of crimes related to the illegal use of budget funds in the construction of roads is dominated by crimes against property (72,4%) and crimes in the sphere of official and professional activities (24,8%). The vast majority of investigated crimes (60%) are committed in the last four months of the budget and financial period. The disproportionate regional distribution of criminal encroachments was recorded, which is due to the priorities of financing road works on highways of international and national importance in the western and central part of Ukraine.