Yevgeny Magda
Photo from UNIAN
Situation revolving around Ukrzaliznytsia may provoke
a government crisis. Samopomich Party through its talking heads is trying to
tackle the “waste blockade” of Lviv and tries to contribute to the blockade of
railway connection with the areas in Donbas beyond government control.
Control over Ukrzaliznytsia [Ukrainian Railways],
which, according to its CEO Wojciech Balczun, is moving from losses to profits,
has become a stumbling block for the Cabinet of Ministers.
Interestingly enough, its re-subordination to the
Ministry of Economic Development and Trade from under control of the Ministry
of Infrastructure was the second such attempt over the last six months - in
2016 the hierarchy of control over Naftogaz of Ukraine was attempted to be
altered, but company CEO Andriy Kobolev had managed to hold his ground.
Maybe there is a certain logic in trying to
concentrate all monopolies under control of a single ministry, but it would be
nice to have these moves explained to the public. In the meantime, the conflict
between the Minister of Infrastructure, Volodymyr Omelyan, and Wojciech
Balczun, the prime minister has publicly backed the latter, to which the
minister has vowed to fight until the end.
The latest revelations regarding the time the company
CEO spent beyond Ukraine’s borders in the past year are unlikely to be the last
argument in this battle, so we are to expect more exciting discoveries.
It should not be forgotten that in the process of
reformatting the coalition the Ministry of Infrastructure came under control of
the People's Front Party, while the top management of Ukrzaliznytsia, according
to Omelyan, has found a common language with Lviv-based Dubnevych brothers –
influential deputies from the BPP faction.
Against this background, the withdrawal of some MPs
from parliamentary coalition looks particularly juicy (although it was only MP
Yuriy Bublyk who publicly voiced this allegation), since neither Poroshenko’s
allies nor the Yatsenyuk-led Party are interested in the early elections to the
Verkhovna Rada.
No comments:
Post a Comment