Igor Shvaika
It's time for former Minister Shvaika to flee. Otherwise, it's possible that soon the only food available to him for a long time will be bread, water, and the meager rations of citizens serving sentences in prison. His tenure as Minister of Agrarian Policy raised numerous questions, most of which law enforcement officials have already answered. But let's go back in time. According to the Constitution of Ukraine and common sense, the Ministry of Defense cares for the army, the Ministry of Education for schools and universities, and the Ministry of Health for the sick and hospitals. But who can say why Ukraine needs a Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food if almost ALL, with rare exceptions, agricultural enterprises are privately owned?
Moreover, depending on their specialization, all of the country's farmers are united in more than fifteen Associations and Unions. And these associations are quite self-governing, as evidenced by the annual growth in production of grain, meat, sunflower, and other crops. Moreover, individual agroholdings, without any assistance from the relevant ministry, are entering global stock exchanges, listing their shares, and operating successfully! Why do Nibulon, Cargill, HarvEast, Landgut, Myronivskyi Hliboproduct, Avangard, and many others need a minister and ministry of agriculture? © Photo by Tatyana Khisteva. Kharkiv before the elections—endless repairs, rations, and trolling. "We can handle it ourselves," almost any Ukrainian businessman will answer. "Just don't try to dictate, regulate, license, inspect, and double-check..." But ministers can't do nothing. And that's why almost all the leaders of the domestic agricultural sector are "burned out" at work, both literally and figuratively. For example, Leonid Kozachenko, former Deputy Prime Minister for Agro-Industrial Complex in 2001-2002, former advisor to Prime Minister Yanukovych, etc. (No. 41 on the Poroshenko Bloc list). In the early 2000s, the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine opened more than 90 criminal cases based on the results of an audit of the Ministry of Agro-Industrial Complex. And one of them was "dedicated" personally to Kozachenko, who accepted gifts of shares and securities worth $1,5 million from grain traders. Read also: Open data on officials' assets - much PR, little action. Or a more recent example: Mykola Prysyazhnyuk. In March 2014, the former minister fled from the investigation and trial. And, judging by how much Prysyazhnyuk "forgot" at home – $286 and 659 hryvnias – he managed to smuggle much more out of Ukraine. How much more? Vadim Simonov, merely the first deputy of the State Veterinary and Phytosanitary Service, had $1,7 million in cash and 1,25 million hryvnias confiscated. And Simonov also had to "share" the proceeds with his superiors!
Shareholders of the agricultural market
The Revolution of Dignity's victory was so unexpected that Svoboda simply didn't have a single worthy candidate on hand to fill any ministerial positions. Surely, Ihor Sabii, the former head of the Khmelnytskyi Regional State Administration's Department of Domestic Policy, wouldn't be considered eligible for the post of "Minister of Agricultural Development"? After all, that was precisely the post Sabii held in Svoboda's shadow government. Therefore, Sabii was chosen over Oleksandr Myrnyi (number 18 on Svoboda's list in the 2012 elections), since of all the reliable party members, he was the only one with any relevant experience—he headed the Agros-Vista holding company (Khmelnytskyi Oblast). Myrnyi's name was even mentioned on the Maidan during the public announcement of the list of new ministers! But, alas, Svoboda forgot that Mirny, firstly, lacks a higher education, and secondly, that this candidate for minister doesn't have the best reputation. "I didn't go to university; I graduated from night school at 25," Alexander Mirny doesn't hide the details of his biography. "I went to earn money in the North... And when I returned, I went into business. In 1993, like everyone else at that time, I started trading. Then I looked into agricultural business. I can't even remember which enterprises I'm listed as a co-founder of. I have many friends; they came to me, asked me to help run the business, took me in... This time, Mirny's friends took me in as a "partner" in the Ministry of Agricultural Policy! And, at Mirny's request, Igor Shvaika, who had no prior knowledge of agriculture, was appointed minister next to him! A lawyer, an adventurer, a corporate raider, Shvaika's career unfolded as follows. In 1998, he graduated from the National Law Academy (Kharkiv). But he began working in his field earlier—from 1995 to 2000, he worked for seven companies and even set a professional record: he didn't last even five months as director of the Kharkiv Legal Alliance! Shvaika spent slightly longer at the renowned law firm Ilyashev & Partners, for nine months. But they soon dropped him, too. Why? Probably because of the young lawyer's penchant for adventure. Take, for example, the story of the Kharkivvodstroy motor pool. In 2009, Shvaika managed to "get" the director and main shareholder of the motor depot into pretrial detention, "transfer" the company's shares to new owners through the registrar, and then "donate" these securities to the offshore company "Pumatel Trade." There was a criminal case, searches, and trouble, but the new owners of "Kharkivvodstroy" successfully "resolved" all the issues. And since then, Dmitry and Boris Tsekhansky have been sponsors of the Svoboda party!
But the scandal surrounding the development of Kharkiv's historic center caused even more uproar in Kharkiv. In 2007, the authorities transferred a plot of land on Kvitky-Osnovyanenko Street (near the Ukrainian Cultural Center – author's note) to Harst LLC. Naturally, this violated the law, and even more naturally, the outraged public, with the slogan "Defend Kharkiv Fortress!" and Svoboda party activists, declared a full-blown war on the mayor's office. The court banned construction. But a year later, the same plot of land was transferred to the Monolith construction company, headed by Anatoly Peradze, a well-known and wealthy Kharkiv resident. But the public outcry subsided. Why? Because the law firm Zeus, headed by Igor Shvaika, had handled both the protests and the land allocation for Monolith. Needless to say, one of Kharkiv's largest developers couldn't help but thank the leader of the local Svoboda party for the fruitful collaboration! Shvaika's staff and associates. Upon assuming the post of minister, Igor Shvaika decided to personally oversee the work of the State Veterinary and Phytosanitary Service, the State Agency for Land Resources, the State Agency for Forest Resources, the State Agricultural Inspectorate, and the State Agency for Fisheries.
Due to NBU prohibitions, it's impossible to obtain funding, says Suprun. However, since it's impossible for one person to do everything, the minister has created a team of advisers. Read also: Hryvnia devaluation was 75%—the effect of the National Bank's measures is zero. Ihor Zubrich, for example, the former head of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration's agro-industrial complex department, former deputy head of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences, and a leading expert on port elevators, secretly oversees export issues and oversees grain fumigation services. Oleksandr Panchenko represents the Glavmash trading house (Kharkiv), which is involved in the construction of water structures (it wasn't for nothing that they "squeezed" Kharkivvodstroy!). Vasyl Porayko of the SBU, as he did under former Minister Prysyazhnyuk, advises on security matters and is preparing to reorganize the State Agricultural Inspectorate into, as Shvaika himself once let it slip, an "agricultural FBI." Oleksandr Myrnyi... he's just advising. And those working in the ministry, at state-owned enterprises subordinate to Shvaika, and nearby are people handpicked by former Minister Prysyazhnyuk—all experts in complicity in "shares," "embezzlement," and "squeezing." The latest thing the "old guard" attempted to "embezzle" was $15 million, which the State Food and Grain Corporation attempted to transfer through offshore companies to the accounts of the Ukrainian National Stevedoring Company, owned by the family of Party of Regions MP Yuriy Kruk. The investigation into this scam is in full swing. And it's quite possible that Ihor Shvaika may soon need a parliamentary mandate, which alone can guarantee his immunity.
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