Monday, December 12, 2016

Corruption in Ukraine

Sorry this isn't much of a post.  We both have the flu at our house and publishing anything takes a great deal of effort.  The text is from the news feed, followed by the article.


Exiled lawmaker Oleksandr Onyshchenko on Dec. 6 released the first of a series of audio recordings he claims prove President Petro Poroshenko and his inner circle are corrupt.
The recording was released by the strana.ua online newspaper. In the recording, Onyshchenko and lawmaker Oles Dovhiy, whom the fugitive member of parliament described as representing Poroshenko, discuss the possibility of Onyshchenko, a suspect in an embezzlement case, reaching a plea bargain with Ukrainian authorities. Onyshchenko told strana.ua that the plea bargain would be reached in exchange for him writing off Poroshenko’s alleged $50 million debt to him.
Onyshchenko has said he had been an intermediary in Poroshenko’s alleged efforts to bribe lawmakers and to organize a smear campaign against ex-Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk before Yatsenyuk quit in April. He has also accused Poroshenko of extorting money from businesses and politicians, raiding companies and trying to monopolize the media by negotiating to buy television channels.

A lot of what Onyshchenko is saying is not new and has been said by many more credible sources, including ex-prosecutor generals Davit Sakvarelidze and Vitaly Kasko, lawmakers Sergii Leshchenko and Viktor Chumak and others.
His detailed portrayal of the brazen way in which members of parliament are bribed and state companies are fleeced is astonishing. What makes it more credible is that these practices were well-known before, and that Onyshchenko effectively admitted to taking part in these corruption schemes.

In fact, it is not the critics and accusers who are destabilizing Ukraine and lending Russian dictator Vladimir Putin a hand. It is Ukraine’s amazingly thievish and out-of-touch bureaucracy, which is slowly killing the nation by stealing whatever crumbs are left of the country’s wealth and thus giving fodder to criticism.
If true, Onyshchenko’s accusations could be the beginning of Poroshenko’s downfall, similar to those of his predecessors Leonid Kuchma in the wake of the scandal over the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze and Viktor Yanukovych following his decision to drop an association deal with the European Union.

Oleksandr Onyshchenko, a fugitive lawmaker from the People’s Will faction, has accused President Petro Poroshenko and his inner circle of massive corruption and released what he says is evidence to back his claims.
Though the vast scale of Ukrainian corruption was common knowledge, Onyshchenko’s sweeping allegations add minute detail to the overall picture and specify the exact amounts allegedly paid by the president to bribe lawmakers, as well as those allegedly extorted from state companies by Poroshenko and his right-hand man, lawmaker Ihor Kononenko.
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine has opened a criminal case to investigate Onyshchenko’s claims, while some lawmakers have called for the creation of a special commission. Poroshenko’s critics argue that the scandal could potentially lead to his impeachment and have compared it to the scandal around tapes allegedly implicating then-President Leonid Kuchma in the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze in 2000

Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Bureau obtains evidence as to ownership of the Parliamentarian Segey Faermark in Ukrainian subsidiary of Belgian giant Jan De Nul

12 comments:

  1. I think our president elect is using Ukraine as a model of how to be corrupt.

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    1. If you can steal 70 billion in Ukraine, how much more can you steal in America? Mind you there are more people lined up at the trough. Poroshenko is taking a leaf from Trump, too, and threatening to sue any news media that reports Onyshchenko's accusations

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  2. Feel better soon! May 2017 be a better year for the Ukraine. Let's keep a happy thought anyway.

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    1. No, I think Ukraine is totally screwed. Her politicians refuse to deal with corruption perhaps because they wanted to grab all they could before Putin takes it over as he surely will now, with American acquiescence.

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  3. Hope you both feel better soon. Flue sux
    the Ol'Buzzard

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    1. Thanks, Ol'Buzzard. We are working at it but it is a long haul. Flu turned into bronchitis so we at least can treat it with antibiotics.

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  4. Give that flu the boot - hope you're back in action soon!

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    1. We are trying. I am not yet feeling very phlegmbouyant. On a scale of 1 to 10, maybe a 2. But then one would not expectorate the flu very highly.

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  5. I think I'm heading for the flu too.... coughing and spluttering today.... should have got that flu shot at Shoppers Drug mart.
    Bribery and corruption seem to be the accepted way to get things done, and not only in the Ukraine.

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    1. Do flu shots actually work? I have never had one. Couldn't get one this year if I wanted as there is no vaccine in Ukraine, not even for kids. Hope you stay well.
      Canada certainly isn't immune to corruption. Real estate development seems to be rife with it from what I have been told.

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  6. I hope you are all over the flu by now. And i'm wishing you a happy and healthy and calm and peaceful and trouble-free 2017.

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    1. Thank you. We are well again though it was a long haul. Happy New Year to you and yours too. For 2017, I will just settle for never wishing we had 2016 back

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