NEWSBRIEFS (05/19/96)

NEWSBRIEFS

Kuchma issues decree on wages

KYIV - Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma issued a decree on May 12 aimed at ensuring timely payment of wages, pensions and stipends by the government and state-owned enterprises, Ukrainian Television reported. The decree stipulates that ministers as well as enterprise managers will be fired if they fail to pay salaries on time. In another decree, Mr. Kuchma ordered the State Committee on Television and Radio to launch, within 10 days, regular broadcasts featuring discussion on the basic draft law by members of the Constitutional Committee, national and local lawmakers, government officials, legal experts and representatives of civic organizations, Ukrainian Radio reported. Mr. Kuchma also issued a decree establishing a national athletic training institution to support Ukraine's Olympic and international sports training program. Financial support will come from the Kyiv-based Republican Stadium company. (OMRI Daily Digest)

Austerity measures ordered

KYIV - A government cash crunch and piling wage debts have prompted Leonid Kuchma to order tough austerity measures, including a ban on foreign business travel and other benefits for officials, international agencies reported on May 15. Mr. Kuchma issued a decree temporarily banning spending on office renovations, new furniture and other perks until all wages and pensions owed to workers in state-owned industries, teachers and physicians are paid. Minister of the Economy Vasyl Hureyev said the government owes $951 million in up to four months of back wages. He blamed a continuing decline in industrial output, unpaid taxes and the temporary suspension of credits by the International Monetary Fund last month. Meanwhile, up to 1,000 coal miners blocked railroad tracks in western Ukraine calling for an end to coal imports from neighboring Poland and prompt payment of back wages, Western agencies reported. (OMRI Daily Digest)

TV officials Kulyk, Savenko sacked

KYIV - The Ukrainian Parliament voted to dismiss the state television and radio's top two officials for alleged corruption, Reuters and Radio Rosiyi reported on May 13. The head of the Parliament's Committee on Mass Media charged Zinoviy Kulyk, chairman of the State Committee on Television and Radio, and Oleksander Savenko, head of the national TV company, with giving free air time to broadcast companies having foreign capital and with corrupt licensing services. Deputies said President Leonid Kuchma had promised to remove the two officials last June after signing the Constitutional Accord with Parliament. National democrats and centrists in Parliament condemned the no-confidence vote as yet another provocation by leftist forces against reform and Ukrainianization of the airwaves. (OMRI Daily Digest/Respublika)

Black Sea border delineation is sought

KYIV - Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has asked Russia to speed up clarification of the Black Sea border between Russia and Ukraine, NTV reported on May 10. The request was spurred by the discovery of new gas and oil reserves in the Black Sea shelf. Ukraine wants the border delineated to legalize the ownership of planned drilling sites. Foreign companies have already expressed interest in the reserves. In related news, Ukraine has demarcated its borders with Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, ITAR-TASS reported on May 13. Working maps delineating the border with Belarus should be complete by the end of the year. Territorial disputes remain unresolved with Romania, and Russia so far refused to address the question of its borders with Ukraine. Sewage leakage from the Moldovan cities of Soroki and Yampil into Ukrainian gardens and fields is another source of minor border disputes. (OMRI Daily Digest)

Journalist murdered in central Ukraine

CHERKASY - Police here found the body of a well-known journalist, Ihor Hrushetsky, lying in the street near his home, Ukrainian Television reported on May 10. Police said Mr. Hrushetsky died from a blow to the head and have launched an investigation. Colleagues believe the reporter may have been murdered for his articles on political corruption in such newspapers as Nezavisimost and the now-defunct Respublika. (OMRI Daily Digest)

Sobolev defends economic record

PRAGUE - Borys Sobolev, chairman of the Ukrainian State Credit and Investment Co., defended Ukraine's economic record before a conference on privatization here on May 15. He argued that the nationalization of Ukraine's property had taken 15 years and many lives (in the 1930s), so one should not expect de-nationalization to be a quick and easy process. He noted that 47 percent of Ukraine's GDP is now generated by the private sector, double the share in 1994. Mr. Sobolev criticized international financial institutions for "establishing plans like before...on how many enterprises are privatized each quarter." He said much of the $1.5 billion in state credits that Ukraine had received from abroad "were used improperly for the support of loss-making industries by the government of the time." Hence, Mr. Sobolev said, these credits "very often are not playing a positive role and even playing a negative role...hampering privatization." (OMRI Daily Digest)

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