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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

Savings Bank Not Special?

29 May, 1999 - 00:00

The Day previously (No. 16, April 27) carried the article, "Special
Savings Bank," dealing with possible changes in the Saving Bank's credit
policy connected with personnel-shifting in the Bank's provisional Board
of Oversight. In particular, author Iryna Klymenko doubted the wisdom and
safety of crediting long-term government programs when the banking system
has mainly short-term money resources.

In reply to the publication, the editors have received a letter signed
by head of the Saving Bank's press-service Yuri Kilymnyk. According to
him, the article "incorrectly covers some far-from-secondary matters connected
with activities of the State Specialized Commercial Savings Bank." Respecting
the wishes of the Saving Bank of Ukraine's press-service, the editors specify
that the Saving Bank's Oversight Board did not came into being in April
this year. The Cabinet of Ministers discussed this point as long ago as
two years and confirmed in office, by resolution No. 520 of May 30, 1997,
the board "with the goal of clarifying legal coverage of the state's involvement
in managing the state-run saving bank and to enhance control over it."
In resolution No. 374 of March 15, 1999, the Cabinet approved a new provisional
Oversight Board composed of eleven members chaired by Prime Minister Valery
Pustovoitenko. The press-service also draws attention to the fact that
the State Property Fund representative was not named to the board (the
article, as well as the 1997 resolution, provides for membership of an
SPU representative).

THE DAY'S COMMENTS

The Saving Bank's negative reaction to media reports that, putting it
mildly, do not show enthusiasm for the bank's cadre shifts on the eve of
the elections is quite understandable. Also clear is its indignation over
the "far-from-secondary matters," which the bank ought not to have. Something
else is unclear. How can The Day correspondent's omission of the
source of staff changes (the 1997 resolution) possibly damage the Saving
Bank's reputation? The article did err on this, but it does not change
the essence of the point. Sufficed it to add the words "of a new composition"
to the words "Board of Oversight" in the first sentence, and there would
have been no need to deny "the information that does not conform to reality."

Incidentally, if the reader is interested in what was noteworthy in
the 1999 resolution on the Saving Bank, this document really deals exclusively
with staff replacements (whereas the 1997 resolution focused on the board's
functions). The clause on the board's quantitative composition was amended
last April, setting the number of at least seven. As a result, the following
eleven were approved: Valery PUSTOVOITENKO, Prime Minister of Ukraine,
Chairman; Roman BEZSMERTNY, People's Deputy, Representative of the
President in Verkhovna Rada; Heorhy BERADZE, a department chair
in the Cabinet apparatus; Volodymyr HORBULIN, Secretary of the National
Security and Defense Council; Viktor HRYBKOV, Chairman of the Saving
Bank's Board of Governors; Borys ZAICHUK, Chairman of the Board
of Directors, Pension Fund; Ihor MITIUKOV, Minister of Finance;
Ihor PLUZHNIKOV, People's Deputy; Vasyl ROHOVY, Minister
of Economics; Valery KHOROSHKOVSKY, People's Deputy; and Viktor
YUSHCHENKO
, Chairman of the Board of Governors, National Bank of Ukraine.

Now that we have read the list of people appointed to the board it makes
sense to ask whether they will be able to resist the temptation to violate
the two-year-old resolution that bans the board from "interfering in the
Saving Bank's operational activity" or whether another resolution be passed
shortly, this time to cater for the new board membership.

 

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