Ukraine oligarch calls for nationalisation of industrial assets - FT.com
▻http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/77ed11d2-ce57-11e4-86fc-00144feab7de.html
One of Ukraine’s most powerful oligarchs has called for some of the country’s prized industrial assets to be nationalised, claiming that their privatisation was a criminal conspiracy to rob the state of billions of dollars.
Igor Kolomoisky, a billionaire businessman, told the Financial Times that Ukraine should not receive any new funds from the International Monetary Fund until all “illegally” privatised property had been restored to state ownership.
“Ukraine is going round begging for money . . . and here is money that is due to the state. Return these enterprises, put them up for sale in an open tender and you will get 10 times more than you did [before],” he said, adding that any new auctions could raise tens of billions of dollars.
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Mr Kolomoisky’s proposal represents a political bombshell, and a direct challenge to his fellow oligarchs who scooped up state assets at often knockdown prices in the privatisations of the 2000s. Critics say his motives may be less patriotism or a sense of fair play than a desire to gain advantage over his business rivals in the febrile atmosphere of post-revolutionary Ukraine.
But opening up past privatisations could raise concerns over the sanctity of property rights in Ukraine and destabilise its already fragile business climate, experts warn, at a time when the country is struggling to cope with a deep economic crisis brought on by the war against Russian-backed separatists in the east.
Arseniy Yatseniuk, Ukraine’s prime minister, reacted cautiously to Mr Kolomoisky’s proposal, telling the FT it could “open a Pandora’s box” if the decision on whether privatisations were right or wrong were made by a “corrupted judiciary”.
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Mr Kolomoisky’s criticism of the Ukrrudprom process has added resonance because of the fact he was a beneficiary of it. He told a Ukrainian parliamentary committee this month that the privatisation procedure was designed to restrict the number of potential bidders and ensure the assets ended up in “the right hands”.
“The law [on Ukrrudprom] was shameful, humiliating and criminal,” Mr Kolomoisky told the FT. “This was a planned conspiracy to commit a crime.”
Mr Kolomoisky intends to submit evidence of the alleged wrongdoing to Ukrainian prosecutors, in the hope they will launch an investigation into the sell off of Ukrrudprom. He also said that if local prosecutors confirm evidence of collusion, bribery and tender rigging, all the Ukrrudprom mines privatised in 2004 should be “expropriated”, without compensating their current owners.