REUTERS
At least eight penitentiary facilities are set to be shut down soon.
Ukraine's Ministry of Justice as early as by summer-end is set to put up for electronic auctions a number of mothballed prisons, Minister Denys Maliuska said.
At least eight penitentiary facilities are set to be shut down soon, Maliuska told the Mind outlet, according to the Ministry's press service, adding that a large infrastructure project has been developed to transfer pre-trial detention centers away from the center of cities where many of them are located to the outskirts.
"Soon after convicts are transferred from there and staff are dismissed, such prisons will be put up for sale," the minister said.
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The decision on mothballing was made in relation to the following penitentiary facilities: Kovel Educational Colony, Ustyniv Correctional Center (No. 37), Shyriaev Correctional Center (No. 111), Ihren Correctional Center (No. 133), Black Sea Correctional Colony ( No. 74), Zhovti Vody Correctional Colony (No. 26), Cherkasy Correctional Colony (No. 62), and Derhachiv Correctional Colony (No. 109).
The minister added that this list was yet to be supplemented.
The sale of prisons will be carried out at open electronic auctions via the Prozorro-Sale system.
"After receiving proceeds from the sale, we will start designing and constructing new prisons in cities where local authorities have allocated land plots or where we have free land in use. First of all, these are Lviv and Kyiv. Unfortunately, the parliament did not support the bill, which established a clear mechanism for distributing the proceeds from the sale. Therefore, now we are forced to adapt to the existing mechanisms of sale, which are far from perfect and somewhat delaying the process with bureaucratic formalities," the head of the Ministry of Justice said.
According to him, at the same time preparations are underway for the transfer of the Kyiv Pre-Trial Detention Center to the Boryspil district: a tender is being prepared for a feasibility study, and then a tender for repair and construction works to reconstruct the Boryspil Correctional Colony (No. 119), which will become the base for the new Kyiv pre-trial detention center.