Freebies for Judges

Below are bits I've translated from an article in the current "Dyelovaya Stolitsa" business weekly entitled

"[Kyiv City] Deputies gift judges 11 hectares of land"

City authorities continue to give out plots of land. This time it was the workers of the Supreme Court of Ukraine who 'got lucky' when they were awarded 11 ha of the "Troyeshchina" recreational park for the building of private cottages. This unprecedented decision was made last week by the KyivRada. It seems that Leonid Chernovetskiy's [Mayor of Kyiv] team decided to repeat the controversies of its predecessors who tried to give away dozens of hectares of the "Pushcha Vodytsya" nature reserve to distinguished politicians and businessmen for them to build dachas and gardens.

This time the Kyiv Rada made the decision to award the workers of the Supreme Court of Ukraine the 11 ha plot on a 'free of charge' lease for to five years, via the Society of the housebuilders "Desenka" (whose members the judges are).

Permission has been granted for the building of 80 individual cottages and social-welfare units. In accordance with the resolution of the city council, the judge's dachas will be scattered in the green belt zone between the village of Troyeshchina and the Desenka river.

The conversion of part of the urban park, from was was formally "green zone" into a "territory of farmstead- housing building", was taken without the agreement of the appropriate KyivRada commission. The KyivRada Secretary Oles Dovgiy (Leonid Chernovetskiy block) suppressed all attempts to debate this question (even though city ecologists tried to protest against this decision).

The voting in the Kyivrada for approval of transfer of land to the Supreme Court workers was as follows: 74 of more than 80 registered deputies supported the motion; 20 out of 40 BYuTivtsi voted for, 19 of the 21 deputies of the fraction of the Leonid Chernovetskiy Bloc voted for; 7 of the 15 NU guys voted for; and all 9 PoR voted for.

Members of ecological commission have asked Leonid Chernovetskiy, as head of the KyivRada to initiate cancellation of the decision."

The Supreme Court of Ukraine have been busy lately making sweeping decisions which may affect Kyivstar, Ukraine's largest mobile 'phone company. [See yesterday's blog.]

An explanation of why Alfa-Group are so keen to control Kyivstar and squeeze out Telenor here.

Is my posting today in any way connected to yesterday's posting?