Kuchma names young industrialist to newly created super-ministerial post

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma appointed young industrialist Oleh Dubyna to the newly created super-ministerial post of vice prime minister of industrial policy on January 26.

The appointment came with the approval of Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko, who is said also to have had Mr. Dubyna high on his preferred list, although some press sources have said Mr. Yuschenko was pushing the appointment of the chairman of Zaporizhia Oblast, Oleksii Kucherenko.

Mr. Dubyna was the general director of Kryvorizhstal, Ukraine's largest steel manufacturing plant, until the appointment to his new post, which will essentially make him Ukraine's industrial policy tsar. He has a spotless record in taking bankrupt companies into the black.

After assuming the general directorship of Kryvorizhstal in November 1999, it took him about a year to put the plant on its feet and show a 1 billion hrv profit in 2000. President Kuchma was so taken by Mr. Dubyna's accomplishments at Kryvorizhstal that he personally removed it from the list of plants that were targeted for privatization in 2001. Prior to that Mr. Dubyna worked his wonders at the Alchevsk Metallurgical Complex, where he also returned a bankrupt operation to profitability.

Mr. Dubyna is a political independent, which fulfills one of the two characteristics both the president and the prime minister were seeking in the person who would fill the post. The other requirement was that the individual preferably would hail from the regions and not the capital.

Mr. Dubyna, 41, replaces Yulia Tymoshenko, who was fired by the president on January 19 after becoming the subject of an investigation by the Procurator Genera's Office into charges of forgery, smuggling and embezzlement. Ms. Tymoshenko was vice prime minister of energy, a portfolio that President Kuchma expanded to include all industrial policy when he appointed Mr. Dubyna.

Prime Minister Yuschenko said on January 27 that he has full confidence that his new vice prime minister will continue to pursue the policies begun by Mrs. Tymoshenko, including enforcement of timely payments by large energy consumers to government coffers. He also said he believes that Mr. Dubyna would continue energy sector reorganizations as recently approved by the Cabinet of Ministers.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, February 11, 2001, No. 6, Vol. LXIX

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