Prosecutor’s office investigates state holding companies’ wrongdoing

President Kuchma signed last Wednesday an order On Urgent Measures to Regularize the Performance of State (National) Joint Stock and Holding Companies. It appears that many of these entities are entering a time of change. Those showing bad performance will be liquidated and the structures of others will be optimized. Naturally, all are ordered to pay their budget debts. Under the presidential edict, the cabinet must secure the proper management of public property and state/national corporate holding rights, and replace the membership of their boards.

The General Prosecutor’s Office is “recommended” to apply sanctions to wrongdoers operating under state protection. Incidentally, such skullduggery was detected by a special commission presided over by NSDC Secretary Yevhen Marchuk (when checking the establishment, privatization, and business performance of state/national joint stock and holding companies). Specifically, the commission ascertained that half these companies have been in the red over the past several years, their budget and off-budget fund debts piling up. Taking advantage of the absence of legislative regulation, some of them (such as Ukrnaftoprodukt, Ukrayinski Polimetaly) unlawfully sold blocks of state-owned stock in strategically important enterprises, thus inflicting substantial damage on the state, reports UNIAN. The NSDC spokesman told The Day that serious shortcomings were detected also when inspecting Ukraine’s largest national company Naftohaz Ukrayiny.

Meanwhile, the parliament’s economic policy committee intends to submit a bill on joint stock companies during this Verkhovna Rada session. At its seventh session in July, the Ukrainian parliament voted down the cabinet’s joint stock companies bill (which the president described as a priority one).