What exactly prevented the sale of the Odesa Port Plant for the fifth time? The parties' versions

On November 25, the state failed for the fifth time was able to The auction to sell the Odesa Port Plant did not take place due to the absence of registered participants. The press service of the Ministry of Economy cited difficult privatization conditions as the reason why no investor was interested in the Odesa Port Plant.

But there was one potential participant. Agro Gas Trading reports that they tried to participate in the privatization but were unable to register. They cited a strange reason. "Obstacles that made it impossible to access the signing of the NDA by the state and admission to the auction," the company said in a comment LIGA.net.

Volodymyr Fomichov contacted Oleksandr Horbunenko, the owner of Agro Gas Trading, to find out exactly how the company was prevented from registering for the auction. We received written comments from the press service of Agro Gas Trading, in which it accuses the SmartTender electronic platform (where the bidding was supposed to take place) of denying it access to the auction.

What exactly happened? The State Property Fund declined to provide its position. We also reached out to SmartTender, but as of the time of publication, no response has been received. We will add it to the text as soon as we get it.