The name of Arseniy Petrovich's right-hand man, Andrey Ivanchuk, is increasingly being linked to all sorts of strange schemes. Now, gambling may be added to the mix.
Ivanchuk has been friends with Yatsenyuk since childhood and always helped him organize political campaigns. It's possible he spent some money. And now he's forced to find ways to recoup it—legally and within the law, of course.
First, they talked about Mr. Ivanchuk's interests in Ukrzaliznytsia. Then, about his active involvement in the fate of the Ukraina Printing Plant.
There's talk now that Mr. Ivanchuk has taken an interest in the gambling business. Specifically, the Finance Ministry's latest initiative to transfer the monopoly on state lotteries to Oschadbank allegedly originated with his office.
(Finance Minister Oleksandr Shlapak initially seemed to resist bringing Azarov's scheme to light, but was later persuaded – either by the prospect of a place on the new political party's list or by guarantees of retaining his post)
The idea is as simple as pie, and indeed, it was conceived during the time of Mykola Azarov and was promoted by the “family” (through close deputy Pinchuk) in 2013.
There are four licensed state lottery operators in Ukraine (Oshchadbank, MSL, National Lotteries, and Patriot). Oschadbank's license has been frozen because the state institution has never had the money or time for this business.
Three private companies share a market worth approximately 9 billion hryvnias, earning approximately 2 billion hryvnias from which they pay approximately 400 million hryvnias in taxes.
A yard and a half arrived under Azarov and they wanted to “re-divide” it a little, with a slight wave of the hand transferring to Oschadbank the right not only to conduct games, but also to determine lottery operators to whom to “entrust” the conduct of the games.
Thus, Oschadbank becomes a monopoly lottery organizer and a “roof” for all other operators.
It's not known for certain whether they'll have to pay for this roof now. But under Nikolai Yanovich, they certainly would have. And a kickback of less than 50% was considered "humiliating for the team" back then.
So the potential profits from the market re-division could be quite pleasant.
Moreover, the Ministry of Finance is planning to quietly reinstate licenses for gambling halls—casinos and slot machines. And here—pay attention—the trick is with the numbers.
The Ministry of Finance's bill presentation, posted on its website, indicates that potential budget tax revenues from the redistribution of the gambling market will amount to approximately 500 million hryvnias, while lottery operators currently pay approximately 400 million hryvnias.
However, for some reason, the Ministry of Finance is reluctant to mention that, according to its calculations, fees from all lottery operators will fall to 150 million hryvnias. This is the amount Oschadbank will pay into the budget.
They plan to raise another 350 million rubles for the budget by legalizing underground casinos. It's unclear what's stopping them from addressing this issue legislatively now.
It's also unclear what kind of market de-shadowing the Ministry of Finance is talking about, given that over the past five years, not a single audit has been conducted on the reliability of lottery ticket distribution systems, the transparency of bets on slot machines (instant lottery machines), sports betting, etc.
Clearly, high-quality and urgently needed reforms are urgently needed. Yatsenyuk's team has been working tirelessly on these reforms for almost six months now.
Certainly, the redistribution of the gambling market in favor of "friends" under the cover of the war is one such reform. The main thing is to complete it before the re-elections.
Oleksandr Dubinsky, Ukrainian Pravda blogs
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