Vladimir Omelyan
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine's press service released a statement indicating that Infrastructure Minister Omelyan is committed to the privatization of non-strategic state-owned companies.
The Ministry of Infrastructure will focus on ensuring transparent privatization, the head of the ministry, Volodymyr Omelyan, announced on his Facebook page on the night of Thursday, May 12.
The new minister announced large-scale privatization.
"Privatization, concessions, and public-private partnerships. Everything non-strategic must be separated from what is truly strategic and transferred to private hands. Taxpayers are not obligated... to encourage political corruption and inefficiency," the Minister of Infrastructure emphasized.
This position of the minister is genuinely surprising.
Exactly two months ago, on Friday, March 13, President Petro Poroshenko announced he was transferring his confectionery corporation, Roshen, to a blind trust, as he could not sell it due to the difficult political situation, which kept investors away from Ukraine. "As long as there is no peace in Ukraine, investors and buyers won't come," Poroshenko said.
Thus, Volodymyr Omelyan and the investment bankers who have filled his ministry are not listening to the President's words. Apparently, their goal is different from Petro Poroshenko's: to sell state-owned enterprises not at the highest possible price, but at the lowest possible price—preferably among their own. After all, once peace is established, their value will increase exponentially.
Volodymyr Omelyan's privatization carries colossal economic risks. Firstly, he is acting contrary to the proven practice established by the President of Ukraine of refusing to sell enterprises during wartime. Secondly, if state-owned enterprises are sold in the same secretive manner in which Omelyan conducted the recent scandalous competitions for the leadership of Ukrzaliznytsia and Ukrposhta, Ukraine will receive mere pennies from such sales, while the enterprises will be moved offshore and will cease to be subject to state control and pay taxes altogether.
In the current situation, the SBU must thoroughly investigate the anti-state privatization plans being hatched by Volodymyr Omelyan, and the government must put the overweening minister in his place.
SKELET-info
Subscribe to our channels in Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, VC — Only new faces from the section CRYPT!