WILL THE CABINET BE RETIRED?
“One has to be prepared for surprises at all times,” Yevhen Kushnariov jokes. Or does he?
Surprises were mentioned at a briefing concerning possible changes in the Cabinet. Its sitting, scheduled for Thursday, will be attended by the President. Presidential Administration Head Yevhen Kushnariov said that several ministers had offered their resignations due to their newly acquired People’s Deputy status, adding that staff changes would also take place in the Presidential Administration for both “objective and subjective reasons,” and because it is necessary to “increase the effectiveness” of its work. Changes in the Administration’s structure are also possible.
Mr. Kushnariov further commented on the retirement of three oblast state administration heads in Kherson, Zhytomyr, and Lutsk, thus probably contributing to the report being prepared by the OSCE mission monitoring the elections, jointly with Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, who in their previous statement doubted the “neutrality of the state apparatus during the elections.”
“A deep-going analysis is underway to study such a powerful political campaign as the elections to the Verkhovna Rada and local authorities,” said the Administration head, “so we regard the heads of state administrations as not only administrators and economic managers, but also as political leaders. Thus, it is understandable that the results of this political campaign are in a way an assessment of their performance. It is precisely from this point of view that their work is being analyzed, and I think there will be further staff changes. A session of the Council of Regions is being prepared for the third ten days of April. It will consider the election results, assess administration heads’ performance, and assign them new tasks.”
As for the Cabinet meeting which the President is to attend, it will “evaluate the current economic situation.” And then Mr. Kushnariov said something that might surprise the IMF: the first quarter’s macroeconomic results show that 1998 may become a year of stabilization and the beginning of economic growth. In his words, the first quarter yielded a 1.7% production increment, compared to the same period of last year. “All previous governments dreamed of only one thing: stopping production decline!” Mr. Kushnariov exclaimed, as though challenging the skeptics.
Very likely the larger part of the briefing, however, consisted of his long explanations of what a bad thing was done by a certain newspaper which carried gossip about how much the President costs. After such detailed explanations one ought to expect that this subject, sensitive for the Presidential Administration and interesting to the taxpayer, will receive fresh impetus.
