Turning the pages back...

June 12, 1997

Three years ago, when Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko of Ukraine made his first official visit to Canada - a visit aimed at securing the growing business partnership between Ukraine and Canada - he was greeted with a barrage of media attention on allegations of corruption in Ukraine.

On the eve of his June 12 arrival in Ottawa, The Globe and Mail ran a front-page story in which a Canadian businessman who wrote to the Canadian mission in Kyiv complained that "bureaucratic interference in the normal day-to-day operations of commercial enterprises is slowly strangling the investment community." Mr. Lazarenko acknowledged that graft and bribery remain major problems facing Ukraine. However, he denied allegations that he or any senior government workers have contributed to his country's corruption problem.

In Ottawa Ukraine's prime minister tried to sidestep similar questions on high-level corruption. "It's not true," said Mr. Lazarenko, in the foyer outside the House of Commons.

Source: "Pavlo Lazarenko visits Canada to do some PR damage control" by Christopher Guly, The Ukrainian Weekly, June 22, 1997, Vol. LXV, No. 25.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 11, 2000, No. 24, Vol. LXVIII

| Home Page |