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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Serhiy Melashchenko Appointed Head of BSSC

13 November, 2012 - 00:00

Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Transport Volodymyr Sevriukov introduced to the staff of the Black Sea Steamship Company (BSSC) newly appointed company President Serhiy Melashchenko, who hitherto headed the Ukrainian Passenger Fleet Management Company.

The contract between the Cabinet of Ministers and Serhiy Melashchenko was signed on June 29. However, the newly appointed head of the company postponed his first meeting with journalists until mid-July, because, as he told The Day in an interview, he would need at least half a month to work out his own approach to solving the financial and economical problems facing BSSC. One can hardly disagree. In fact, BSSC is on the verge of bankruptcy; the process of working out a procedure for selling at auction company property to pay sailors' wages arrears of several years is underway in Odesa. Of the original BSSC fleet, which seven years ago numbered 377 vessels and placed Ukraine third among the maritime states of Europe, only a few commercial and passenger vessels remain rusting away after having been impounded in a number foreign ports.

In the last few years, thanks to the efforts of branch headquarters officials, over 80 vessels of various kinds have been withheld from BSSC management and financial control. No one knows for certain how many of them are still Ukrainian property, how many are deposited for debts to creditors, how much and to what accounts the money is going from foreign structures for the vessels sold by auction abroad. In any case, BSSC management was unable $22 of the $26 million earned from the Haisyn and Volodymyr Vasliayev, ships sold last year in order to pay wage arrears and to avoid going under the auctioneer's gavel in Odesa.

 

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