Valentyna Semenyuk (pictured below, with PM Tymoshenko) was appointed to head up the State Property Fund in April 2005. Despite the fact that her Socialist Party failed to make it into parliament at the last elections in September 2007, Semenyuk remained in office until a February 6 push to replace her and her entire team which saw Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko sign a number of decrees with which she fired three deputy heads of the SPF and launched an official investigation into alleged abuses of office. However, on February 7 the President swooped to cancel the decrees and returned Semenyuk and her team to the SPF.
“I learned of the government’s decision to remove me from office via the media and only later did I receive a call from Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Turchynov. I haven’t received any documents detailing the government’s decision,” commented Semenyuk.
Turchynov responded by emphasising that the Cabinet of Ministers had not fired Semenyuk but only suspended her from the SPF for the duration of the investigation. “A new government team has been commissioned to introduce order in the country and not to continue long and ineffective negotiations with people who cover up nontransparent and shady privatisation decisions,” he explained.
However, the President denied that there was justification for any investigation and overruled Tymoshenko’s initiative, claiming that it was unconstitutional and fell outside the Cabinet of Ministers’ remit.
Legally dubious decision
“The government can’t bar me from my duties because the SPF, according to legislation, doesn’t belong to the executive branch and it is impossible to act as if it were a ministry. The SPF enjoys special status and its head can only be dismissed following a parliamentary vote and other procedures,” Semenyuk claimed defiantly.
Tymoshenko stated that the decision to push for Semenyuk’s removal stemmed from a desire to introduce discipline into the SPF and speed up the process of privatisation as quickly as possible, but promised to accept Yushchenko’s decision: “We will follow the decree and we will move forward as one team.”
During less the chaotic one-day period between the government decree and the Presidential veto the SPF met under new head Andriy Portnov, who found time to conduct a meeting with his new team and to hold various press conferences. However, by noon on February 7 local media reported the end of Portnov’s brief reign. Members of the opposition Party of Regions accused Tymoshenko of a raider-style approach to the SPF. “She [Tymoshenko] disdained all legal norms existing in the state,” said Regions deputy Yuriy Miroshnechenko, who labelled the move an attempt to establish control over the SPF. “Tymoshenko needs money, of course, because funds earned by the Viktor Yanukovych government have already been dished out,” he alleged.
Part of the power struggle
Political analyst Oleksandr Derhachov of the Kuras Institute for Political and Ethnic Studies commented that Tymoshenko does indeed need to raise budget revenues though privatisation, but added the likelihood of corruption within the SPF also justified high-level personnel changes. “Here we see a combination of political factors and economic needs,” he said, adding, “The president is not against Semenyuk’s retirement, but it is important for him not to remain outside of such processes.”
