Kyiv, December 15, 2015. Anticorruption Forum is due to take place in Kyiv on December 25. Representatives of civil society and of the business community as well as activists from across the country will take part in it. Similar forum has already been held in Odesa. Odesa anticorruption initiative was in focus of the forum, businessmen and entrepreneurs were experts, based on their own experience they spoke about the problems that they are facing almost daily: raiding, illegal tax checks, unjust legislation etc. Same concrete issues are to be raised at the Kyiv Forum, said Head of Odesa regional state administration Mikheil Saakashvili at a briefing at Ukraine Crisis Media Center. At the Kyiv forum it is planned to discuss the schemes that siphon off billions of dollars from the state budget. “Odesa Port Plant is a one whole scheme. The losses that we’ve calculated amount to USD five billion. There is a similar situation with another plant in the city. Our Prosecutor’s Office also demonstrates interest for the Odesa oil refinery,” explained Saakashvili. He said generally a similar scheme is used at all state-owned companies: to purchase at highest price possible and to sell at cheapest one possible.
“We have plenty of information [about corruption in the government] but we also have the documents that prove it. I mentioned it yesterday [at the meeting of the National Reform Council], and you already know what started afterwards,” emphasized Saakashvili. He is convinced that the possibility of political appointments to public service as well as distribution of such posts among political parties needs to be abolished. “We are not going to remain silent on that. That’s why we are being called ‘touring actors’. We have broken their plans,” explained Saakashvili. He shared that more information will be released at the forum, it has been obtained from the honest public servants. “I want to know precisely who stole the USD 120 million that the government mentions so calmly. As per my estimation this amount is two times bigger. What other proofs do we need?” Saakashvili noted.
Head of Odesa regional state administration also demonstrated a video earlier released by Ukraine’s Interior Ministry. On the video allegedly Saakashvili himself is talking to the Russian citizen Mazepin – head of the Russian “Uralkhim” company. However, according to Saakashvili it is clearly visible that cut has been applied to the video: the person does not look like him at all, the scale of figures in the frame doesn’t match etc. “Ukraine’s Interior Ministry is having the Ukrainian people for fools. Same as they have falsified this video they are stealing billions from the country every day,” noted Mikheil Saakashvili.
