Who Will Give the Money Back?

Perhaps the most painful problem of recent days in Verkhovna Rada has been the debate on the bill providing for a special emission of state bonds to pay off Ukrayina Bank’s liabilities to creditors. On July 9, the bill was voted down. A legislative little brother revised by the Interministerial Task Force under Finance Minister Ihor Mitiukov’s patronage suffered the same lot on July 12 (152 nays out of 197 votes cast). That same day, Deputy Finance Minister Pavlo Hermanchuk declared in parliament that Ukrayina Bank depositors could get all of their money back only by issuing internal government bonds. Viktor Suslov, deputy chairman of the interim parliamentary committee of inquiry, holds an entirely different view. He believes that repaying Ukrayina Bank debts at the expense of the national budget (i.e., with taxpayers’ money) is just another way to subdue the bank scandal, leaving those involved in the shadows. Meanwhile, returning some one billion hryvnias by the bank’s debtors would make it possible to solve the problem. However, parliament was unable to hear the inquiry committee’s report as scheduled on July 12 (Ukrayina Bank ranks with the nation’s largest banks). Mr. Suslov noted that “we have stumbled into a number of problems in our work.” It is hard to predict what course events will take in the Ukrayina bankruptcy scandal.