Mykolayiv Alumina Plant: Calm Before the Storm?

Mr. Taranov says the agency, which controls the state-owned shares at the MAP (55% of the authorized capital), will recommend the meeting support the candidature of Mr. Naboka, provided he "does a good job." Mr. Mieshyn is being backed by the MAP Work Collective Ltd., which he heads and owns a 26.4% stake at the plant. "According to unofficial information, Mieshyn personally controls about 40% of MAP shares," Mr. Taranov told Ukrayinski Novyny. The Friday before last he stood up for Mr. Naboka in Parliament, so Verkhovna Rada failed to pass a resolution on the violation of law and rights of citizens at the MAP.

Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Law and Order Committee Yuri Karmazin, who made a report on the issue, blamed the Ministry of Industrial Policy and agency mentioned for taking no actions to fulfill the legislature's resolution of July 2 about putting the MAP in order. Mr. Karmazin called on the Deputies not to allow people, who serve anybody except the Ukrainian state, to manage the plant. Mr. Karmazin suggested that privatization of strategic enterprises be suspended (at least before the election), for they, in his words, are being dumped for pennies.

Inna Bohoslovska made a compromise proposal: to debar from managing the plant both Mieshyn (during the inquiry) and Naboka, whom she thinks was appointed illegally. She also suggested that the Internal Affairs Ministry, Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade, and Prosecutor General's Office inquire into the activities of Trans World Group in Russia and Kazakhstan, as this company has now in fact seized the MAP without privatizing it or paying a cent.

However, either Mr. Taranov spoke very convincingly in the session hall, or the largest parliamentary factions were interested in precisely this turn of events, but the draft resolution, which envisioned the suspension of Mr. Naboka and dismissal of Messrs. Hureyev and Taranov, failed to pass.

(For more see page Economy/Finance)