Yesterday, 30 June 2016, Ostap Semerak, Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine, presented distorted information at a press conference, claiming that the private company Softline had been the administrator of the National Electronic Registry of Anthropogenic Emissions and Absorption of Greenhouse Gases, in connection with which "the ministry has applied to law enforcement agencies so that they assess the actions of Softline and the prices paid for these services." The minister also added: "We have applied to the international system regarding a change of administrator."
Softline IT LLC is compelled to respond to this statement by Minister Ostap Semerak.
First, our company has never been the administrator of the registry. This function was performed by the State Environmental Investment Agency of Ukraine. Softline IT LLC provided technical administration services, namely hosting and system administration, as well as server maintenance, software updates and so on. We very much regret that the minister in charge of such an important body does not understand the difference. After the State Agency was liquidated in May 2015, the ministry did not sign any contracts with Softline IT to continue the provision of services.
Second, there is no point in assessing Softline IT LLC's prices and "payments," since the ministry did not pay for the services and, as stated above, did not even order them. For a year, Softline IT LLC waited for the relevant contract to be signed and for payment for its hosting services. All this time, the company was in effect providing its services on a volunteer basis, sending letters to the ministry asking it either to sign a contract or to use the services of another data center. Unfortunately, the company never received a single reply. As a consequence of the inaction of civil servants, the registry stopped working in August 2015. Restoring its operation is not difficult, provided that one of the officials starts addressing the issue.
We would add that, based on the results for 2014, the registry operated without any failures, as evidenced by a message the State Agency received in May 2015 from the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Softline IT press office