As I mentioned in my previous blog, the US Vanco Energy Company, with which Yanukovych's government signed an agreement to develop the Kerch section of the Black sea shelf in 2007, has a Ukrainian financial partner - the Donbas fuel and energy company DTEK, controlled to multi-millionaire Rinat Akhmetov. Nothing necessarily wrong with this.
But apart from Akhmetov, Vanco's Black sea project will be financed also by Shadowlight Investments Ltd owned by Russian businessman Eugene Novitskiy, and a certain Integrum Technologies Ltd. The latter is allegedly a subsidiary of an undisclosed Austrian investment holding. Some allege it could be a cover for 'Gazprom' .
When Minister of the Environment Heorhiy Filipchuk is asked by 'Dzerkalo Tyzhnya' who is behind Intergrum, and whether it is the president's brother Petro Yushchenko, or the Klyuev brothers [senior Party of Regions figures] who were behind the company, he replies that he had had no official confirmation of this.
Filipchuk's ministry had recently withdrawn Vanco's hydrocarbon exploration and extraction licence. This will, no doubt be challenged or ignored. But shouldn't Ukraine's citizens know with whom they could be sharing the country's hydrocarbon wealth?
It took many months for the people behind the infamous RosUkrEnergo to reveal themselves. President Yushchenko flatly denied knowing who they were. Hopefully Integrum's backers will not be so shy.
But shouldn't Ukraine's citizens know with whom they could be sharing the country's hydrocarbon wealth?
ReplyDeleteYES, YES, YES.
What's even worse is that Akhmetov, who is a member of the Ukrainian parliament, is one of the 3 parasites who are in on the deal. Akhmetov is a member of the same party as former Prime Minister Yanukovych, who approved the deal.
Get the picture?
The deal was originally awarded to Vanco Energy, from Houston. Now, mysteriously, Vanco Prykerchenska, from the Virgin Islands.
And now US Ambassador Taylor has weighed in.
http://www.unian.net/eng/news/news-252277.html
Ambassador Taylor needs to decide whether the US wants to support corruption in Ukraine, because this deal stinks to high heaven, and whether he wants to turn into a lobbyist for a tiny energy company from Houston.
Because Yanukovych and Akhmetov, and now it appears Yushchenko, are not going to support open, clean, honest, effective, non-corrupt government.
And that affects people in Ukraine VERY negatively, whether Ambassador Taylor realizes it or not.
It's as if the only consideration here is whether Vanco gets to participate in some sort of shadowy corrupt scheme, for the sake of a few bucks for Vanco.
I don't think the people of Ukraine should be given short shrift like that by the US - or support the further crony corruption of Akhmetov, Novitsky and goodness-knows-who from Austria's Integrum.