NEWSBRIEFS (03/21/99)

NEWSBRIEFS

IMF inclined to resume lending

KYIV - The International Monetary Fund on March 16 praised Ukraine for its progress in fiscal and structural reforms. An IMF statement said the fund's board is scheduled to meet by the end of March to discuss resuming its $2.2 billion loan to Ukraine. "IMF management has decided to propose to the executive board to resume financial assistance to Ukraine," the statement added. The IMF approved the loan in September 1998, but after disbursing $300 million it suspended further tranches, citing the slow pace of reform and poor economic performance. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Rada fails to launch impeachment

KYIV - The 450-seat Verkhovna Rada on March 16 voted by 160-57 to begin impeaching President Leonid Kuchma, but fell 66 votes short of the majority required for the bill to pass, the Associated Press reported. The Communists, who initiated the impeachment motion, said Mr. Kuchma should be ousted for his refusal to sign a law on local government that lawmakers passed one year ago by overriding a presidential veto. President Kuchma argued that the Parliament violated house voting procedures in overriding his veto. Commentators say Mr. Kuchma is reluctant to approve the law because it would reduce the authority of presidential representatives in the oblasts. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kuchma suggests Transdniester summit

KYIV - The Ukrainian president on March 16 called for Russia, Ukraine and Moldova to take part in a summit later this year to discuss the normalization of relations between Moldova and its separatist Transdniester region, Reuters reported. Leonid Kuchma proposed the summit during a meeting with Transdniester leader Igor Smirnov in Kyiv. President Kuchma's spokesman said Ukraine hopes that Russian President Boris Yeltsin also will participate in the summit. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kuchma decrees reduction of Cabinet

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma has issued a decree reducing the number of ministries from 21 to 18. The Ministry of Information, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry for Youth and Family Affairs have been downgraded to the status of state committees. The edict also eliminated the State Committee for Oil and Gas, and lowered the status of a dozen other state committees and agencies. "The main goal is to optimize state power and to cut out extraneous links in the government," Reuters quoted Mr. Kuchma's spokesman, Oleksander Martynenko, as saying. The president's decree is widely seen as a bid to appease the International Monetary Fund, which has demanded radical administrative reform before it resumes releasing its $2.2 billion loan to Ukraine. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kuchma criticized for decree

KYIV - Ivan Chyzh, head of the Verkhovna Rada's Committee for Freedom of Speech and Information, has criticized President Leonid Kuchma's decree reducing the number of ministries and state committees. "It is a cause of concern that the Information Ministry no longer exists, while such illegitimately created state committees [as those for radio and television and for publishing and printing] remain," UNIAN quoted Mr. Chyzh as saying. Mr. Chyzh added that President Kuchma's decree intends to create a monopoly within the information sector "to allow easy manipulation" in the upcoming presidential election campaign. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Valerii Pustovoitenko commented that, following the presidential decree, the government has now met all requirements of the International Monetary Fund for the resumption of the fund's $2.2 billion loan to Ukraine. The IMF board will meet on March 24 to discuss resuming that loan. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Alleged murder plot under investigation

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma has ordered that allegations of a murder plot against Crimean Supreme Council Chairman Leonid Hrach be investigated, InfoBank reported on March 15. That move was triggered by a letter from former Parliament Chairman Yevhen Supruniuk published in Krymskaya Pravda. Mr. Supruniuk said that during a conversation in 1995 or 1996, a "high-ranking [Ukrainian] official" offered "to physically eliminate" Mr. Hrach, at that time the first secretary of the Crimean Communist Party. Mr. Supruniuk has been in hiding since November 1998, when an arrest warrant was issued for him on charges of involvement in two murders, assault and financial wrongdoing. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Power plants free of millennium bug?

KYIV - Oleksander Parkhomenko, head of the EnergoAtom state nuclear agency, has said the equipment at Ukraine's nuclear power plants is so obsolete it cannot be affected by the so-called millennium bug. "Fortunately, our nuclear energy sector is not fully computerized, and problems existing in the West are not relevant for us," Reuters quoted Mr. Parkhomenko as saying. Meanwhile, nuclear plant workers have escalated their protests over unpaid wages. Ukrainian law forbids them to strike, so they are spending most of their spare time in tent camps built around power plants. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Pustovoitenko initiates millennium plan

KYIV - Prime Minister Valerii Pustovoitenko issued orders March 2 for preparation of a set of measures to address the millennium bug problem. Development of the project will be assessed on a monthly basis during Cabinet meetings. State Information Agency Director General and Vice Minister of Information Oleksander Baranov said at a March 2 Cabinet meeting that "140 million hrv are needed to solve the millennium bug problem, and that would only cover the most important spheres." He added that "of 1,500 computer systems currently used by state management bodies, 400 will have serious problems." Mr. Baranov identified the most high-risk areas as finance, banking, communications and energy. He went on to complain, "in Ukraine they have not yet acknowledged the severity of the problem." (Eastern Economist)

Canada finances ecology works

KYIV - Canada will provide $2.6 million (Canadian) for Ukraine's Environment Management Project, which will work on improving the ecological state of the Dnipro River basin and increasing the quality of drinking water. (Eastern Economist)

Prostitution ring exposed in Luhansk

LUHANSK - Forty-eight women who had been taken or enticed abroad and were forced to work in the sex industry were returned to Ukraine in 1998. They had been living in Turkey, Cyprus, Libya and a number of other countries. They owe their safe return to the work of a specially created department within the structure of the Luhansk Interior Ministry Criminal Investigation Department. Two women, both Greeks, were deported to Greece after their role in the scheme to take Ukrainian women abroad was uncovered. The women had headed the Neon-Pontos firm in Luhansk, which specialized in recruiting Ukrainian women for posts abroad where they were then pressed into the sex trade. (Eastern Economist)

Petliura-Pilsudski relations recalled

KYIV - One of the first events at the new Polish Institute in Kyiv, founded in February, was a March 4 historical exhibition and presentation of a documentary titled "Difficult Brotherhood," dedicated to Polish-Ukrainian relations at the turn of the century, and the joint political and military actions of Symon Petliura and Joszef Pilsudski. The opening event was attended by Polish and Ukrainian diplomats. The institute plans to take the exhibition and film to be demonstrated in other cities across the country. (Eastern Economist)

Government raises electricity, gas rates

KYIV - The National Commission for Electricity Regulation on March 10 ordered that beginning on April 1 the prices of electricity and gas be increased by 20 percent and 25 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Trade Union Federation has said some 70 percent of the country's population will not be able to pay the new rates on a regular basis. Vice Minister of the Economy Viktor Kalnyk predicted on March 11 that tariffs for utility payments - including rent, heat and water supplies - will be increased by 25 to 30 percent. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kyiv cuts off electricity to debtors

KYIV - The Ukrainian government has cut off electricity supplies to 60 large enterprises that have not paid their debts for earlier deliveries, Eastern Economist Daily reported on March 16. Energy Minister Ivan Plachkov told the Cabinet of Ministers the previous day that those enterprises include several steel plants. Electricity supplies may be resumed only after the head of the newly created commission on monitoring electricity bill payments issues a written agreement to restart deliveries. (RFE/RL Newsline)

A 'breakthrough' in fighting crime?

KYIV - National Bureau of Investigations Chairman Vasyl Durdynets has promised President Leonid Kuchma that 1999 will be a "breakthrough year" in fighting organized crime in Ukraine, Ukrainian Television reported on March 11. According to Mr. Durdynets, some 200 criminal groups are currently active in Ukraine, controlling nearly 12,000 firms. He said that more than 2.5 million crimes have been registered in the country since 1995, but that the crime rate decreased by 10 percent last year. President Kuchma said that, while law enforcement bodies have managed to "stabilize" the crime situation, the number of economic crimes in Ukraine is increasing. He pledged to fight crime and corruption without making exceptions for "untouchables." Some commentators suggest that Mr. Kuchma's current anti-corruption drive is primarily motivated by his bid for re-election in the October 31 elections. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Chornobyl to close only with Western aid

KYIV - Presidential spokesman Oleksander Martynenko said on March 10 that Ukraine will keep its promise to close the Chornobyl nuclear power plant by 2000 "on condition that there is enough financial assistance," Reuters reported. Ukraine promised the G-7 it will shut down Chornobyl in exchange for financial aid to finish building two replacement reactors. According to expert estimates, completing the reactors may cost $1.2 billion. (RFE/RL Newsline)

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