BUNGLED AGAIN

Last Thursday, voting day in Parliament, the Cabinet bill to privatize the open joint stock company Ukrtelekom was voted down again. This time the document was put to vote twice and each time the turnout was even less than the first vote, on June 1.

Once again, amendments to the Law On the Privatization of Public Property were not approved. Unlike the previous bill, this document envisages the list of unprivatizable enterprises to include “property complexes” in the salt industries and those of wineries and distilleries. Among those voting against the bill were the Communists, Socialist Left Center, and both Rukh factions.

And so another privatization bill changing the list of unprivatizable property fell through, although, compared to the previous one, it proposes to retain on the unprivatizable list Naftohaz Ukrainy, its subsidiaries, and arterial pipelines.

Nor did the MPs approve any of the parliamentary opposition bills in the first reading, remitting for revision two bills on local referendums prepared by MPs Roman Bezsmertny and Valery Konovaliuk. The Commercial Code bill was approved in the first reading and that of the Civil Code in the second reading.