Are Political Campaigns Being Financed With Taxpayer Money?
New interesting facts are beginning to surface linked with the liquidation of the Ukrayina Bank. Verkhovna Rada deputies were slated to debate on July 5 the creation of an ad hoc investigation commission which, in the opinion of Yabluko caucus cochairman Viktor Suslov, is to shed some light on the causes underlying Ukrayina’s bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, it should be mentioned that the liquidation of a one of Ukraine’s once largest commercial banks could have quite grave consequences. To date, the bank employs about 16,000 persons and serves about 1.8 million individual clients, with 200,000 small and medium businesses depending on funding they receive from it. In total, Ukrayina’s bankruptcy will in one way or another affect 8.5 million Ukrainians, National Bank experts say. In the meantime, it is absolutely clear that it would be almost impossible to save the bank, as it has UAH 1 billion in unrecoverable credits and does not comply with 18 (out of 19) guidelines set by the National Bank. “The situation is no longer a purely economic problem and will certainly have most unpredictable political and social repercussions,” People’s Deputy Suslov says.
In addition, according to the lawmaker, both the causes and the procedure of bankruptcy have a political background showing criminal undertones. “At present, the myth that Ukrayina went bankrupt due to the unsuccessful implementation of various state programs has been finally dispelled, as only 30% of Ukrayina’s loans were for state programs, with the remaining 70% extended on the bank’s own initiative”, Mr. Suslov emphasizes. Even so, he stresses, the lion’s share of these loans were knowingly unrecoverable and were given to finance political campaigns. Interestingly, the same conclusions have been made by experts of Ukrayina’s auditing department.
According to Viktor Suslov, Ukrayina was financed with loans from the National Bank, with the close cooperation of Vadym Hetman, Viktor Yushchenko, Ihor Mitiukov, and others making it possible to secure a regular flow of budget money to the bank. It is quite significant that, of UAH 900 million which Ukrayina failed to repay to the National Bank, UAH 264 million was restructured. It was an uncompromising stand of the new Governor of NBU Volodymyr Stelmakh that “turned off the golden tap and brought all the details to light.”
In this context, the recent decision backed by Ukraine’s Finance Ministry to issue treasury bills to partially repay Ukrayina’s indebtedness to creditors has the tinge of yet another financial swindle, Suslov believes, for repayment of the deposits of common Ukrainians at the expense of the budget would quash the scandal involving Ukrayina. But “those twenty recipients of loans who had failed to reimburse about UAH 1 billion (the amount sufficient to help Ukrayina stay afloat) and who have cushy seats in the legislature will again remain in the shadows.”
Meanwhile, it is hard to define the situation involving Ukrayina at present, despite Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh’s intention to stimulate the creation of an ad hoc investigation commission and bring the scandal into the public eye. As Suslov stressed, “Officials directly linked with Ukrayina sit on this commission, something which is utterly inadmissible.” Moreover, as experience shows, such commissions are not very effective. It is quite obvious that the matter should be handled by law enforcement.
