Ukraine's 2003 budget in question due to allegations of manipulation

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukraine's 2003 state budget may be in a shambles and in need of revisiting by the Verkhovna Rada after the chairman of its Budget Committee, Petro Poroshenko, announced on March 17 that he was ready to re-vote the final figures to deflect accusations that he had illegally manipulated the numbers.

"The sensation that my colleagues were counting on did not occur. I am sure that these accusations are simply an attempt to reorganize committee leadership and disrupt the stable work of the Verkhovna Rada," explained Mr. Poroshenko in Kyiv after aborting a visit to Brussels.

Mr. Poroshenko, a leading member of the Our Ukraine parliamentary faction, said he and his committee would resign if a vote of the Verkhovna Rada rejected the budget as it appears today. He said that he had not misappropriated some 47 million hrv (about $9 million), as an unlikely combination of national deputies representing the oppositionist Communist faction and the staunchly pro-presidential Social Democratic (United) faction are charging.

If lawmakers decide to rescind approval of the 2003 budget because they support the allegation that its current configuration does not reflect the numbers they supported at the time of the original vote, funding could be halted not only for the huge Ukrainian bureaucratic machine, but also for hospitals, schools, pensions and salaries.

Mr. Poroshenko's announcement came after Communist leader Petro Symonenko accused the Budget Committee chairman on March 13 of shifting certain numbers while finalizing this year's state budget. Mr. Symonenko said that up to 310 million hrv (approximately $60 million) may have been moved around after final approval of the budget on December 28, 2002. Mr. Symonenko explained that he could state with certainty that at least 47 million hrv had been shifted or had disappeared in the process.

After initially denying that the committee had changed any budget figures, Mr. Poroshenko acknowledged a day later that because the second and third votes on the budget had occurred simultaneously - as the lawmakers had agreed to do to expedite the process - approved changes were incorporated only after the budget had passed. However, Mr. Poroshenko continued to maintain that while mistakes might have been made within the parliamentary secretariat, which handles the printing of official laws and documents, nothing illegal had occurred.

National Deputy Nestor Shufrych, a member of the Social Democrats (United) faction who along with Mr. Symonenko is leading the political battle against Mr. Poroshenko, said that approximately 11 million hrv, which had disappeared from certain line items, had reappeared "curiously" in increased funding for the city of Vinnytsia, Vinnytsia Oblast and the neighboring Cherkasy Oblast. He explained that 4.5 million hrv had "settled" into the municipal budget of the city of Vinnytsia, about 2 million of which was specified for the development of an ice skating stadium.

"This is somewhat unpleasant, I would think," Mr. Shufrych wryly noted, "since Vinnytsia is the voting district that elected the chairman of the budget committee."

Mr. Shufrych and Mr. Symonenko contend that the transfer of money took place illegally, consciously and with pre-meditation. Mr. Symonenko noted that the transcripts of the Verkhovna Rada session of December 28, 2002, do not correspond to the recordings upon which the transcripts were developed. He said the stenography was forged as part of the conspiracy, to reflect the changes that were made by Mr. Poroshenko and his abettors.

Mr. Poroshenko, however, cast aside such allegations and provided a charge of his own with its own bit of wryness attached.

"I will be very disappointed if the cassette that they are referring to turns out to be a fake," said Mr. Poroshenko.

Mr. Poroshenko also noted that the increased budgetary appropriation for the city of Vinnytsia was approved by lawmakers after debate, as part of an agreement to provide increased funding for "privileged districts" - those that received the smallest budgetary allocations in previous years. He added that the decision to fund the construction of an ice skating stadium was exclusively a decision of municipal authorities and he could not be held accountable.

Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn stepped into the fray on March 17 to calm the increasingly shrill voices. He said there was no need to turn what may simply be a misunderstanding into a political crisis. He also demanded that lawmakers stop publicly airing their dirty laundry.

"We are again turning the Verkhovna Rada into a laughingstock," said Mr. Lytvyn.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 23, 2003, No. 12, Vol. LXXI

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