Saturday, October 23, 2010

Yanik's boys in dodgy land deals

Donetsk-based website 'Ostro' reports that on Friday the deputies of Donetsk City Council approved the sale of two plots of land to Viktor Yanukovych's sons, Alexander and Viktor.

Viktor Yanukovych, Jr. was sold a plot comprising 610 square meters in the Budennovsk area of Donetsk for 244,375 hryvnia, i.e. at about 151 hryvnia per sq.m.

At the same time, Alexander Yanukovych was sold 7,373 square meters for 1,800,184 hryvnia, i.e about 146 hryvnya per sq.m. It is not clear whether there was an open tender for these plots.

'Ostro's' enquiries indicate the true market value of similar land nearby is about 480 hryvnya per sq. m.

Friday's Donetsk City Council session was the last of this convocation. New city council members will be elected in next week's elections - on Oct. 31st 2010.

Meanwhile, their father, speaking in Kirovohrad today, was quoted as saying,"We are commencing a systemic fight with corruption in Ukraine. Corruption is the enemy of the Ukrainian nation..we need to accept this system and root out corruption with red hot iron...No one in the state will make business on the [state] budget. And we'll clip the pockets the've sewn down to their heels. How do surgeons say it?..We'll cut them off! - amputate them!"

LEvko says that by the standards of dodgy deals in Ukraine this is small potatoes. But why push through the land sale in Donetsk on the last sitting of the council before the elections?

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