Liquidation of Ukrayina: Nothing Terrible Thus Far?
The editors recently received a message from the Bankruptcy Agency, in which the bank’s press service “offered their apologies to the readers and Vitaly Strukov, acting chief executive director of the Ukrayina Bank liquidation agent, over a mistake made in the comment on his behalf to the article ‘How Much Will Ukrayina Cost’” (see The Day, January 22, 2002). It is noteworthy that the press service admitted the mistake was committed through a fault of its own, not of the newspaper, and consisted in saying that the liquidator’s viewpoint was “outdated.” As time passed, The Day learned that the criticism by Mr. Strukov of the parliamentary commission investigating the Bank Ukrayina bankruptcy almost undermined “the establishment of a constructive relationship” (to quote Mr. Strukov) between the Liquidator and people’s deputies.
It will be recalled that Kostiantyn Rusalin, the Liquidator’s previous chairman, was fired precisely after the chief “parliamentary investigator” Viktor Korol made an accusatory speech in Verkhovna Rada on December 14. It is also worth noting that the Bankruptcy Agency raised no complaints about the information on “How Much Will Ukrayina Cost.” On the contrary, Mr. Strukov confirmed that one of the Ukrayina facilities to be sold had been valued below its market value. “The point is that the expert who evaluated the facility did it on the basis of liquidation value. This is why the National Bank insisted on a reevaluation. As soon as we get the new data and coordinate the matter with the NBU, the facility will be immediately put up for sale. The other five facilities are already fully prepared for sale,” the acting chief liquidator announced.
Comments? A special agency expert (according to the liquidator, “out of 22 companies chosen on a tender basis, six have already been given orders”) failed to properly evaluate a Kyiv apartment, and its value was underrated. Law enforcement bodies ignored this, and the parliamentary investigators, who established “a constructive relationship,” as The Day was told by the parliamentary investigative commission’s secretariat, “have no new official information,” while NBU Deputy Governor Volodymyr Krotiuk notes “progress in the Liquidator’s work” (after changes in its leadership) and says that “nothing terrible has happened so far (with the bank’s property — Author)...” It only remains to hope that the attempt to sell Bank Ukrayina’s property “at liquidation value” will not be repeated while assessing the lion’s share of the bank’s infrastructure.
