A total of 474 items covering about 500 bills have been placed on the agenda of the second session of Verkhovna Rada of the fourth convocation, Parliament Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn told the coordinating council on September 9. The week before last, the coordinating council instructed deputies in committees and factions to draft the agenda for the new session. As a result, according to Mr. Lytvyn, 25 additional bills have been put on the agenda and 42 bills and draft resolutions have been excluded for various reasons. Moreover, on the initiative of factions and groups of deputies as well as VR committees, a draft resolution on the intelligence gathered by the General Prosecutor’s Office in the course of investigation into allegations of President Kuchma’s involvement in the killing of journalist Heorhy Gongadze, a resolution to initiate impeachment proceedings against Pres. Leonid Kuchma, as well as a draft resolution on the intelligence gathered by General Prosecutor’s Office in the course of investigation into accusations of Ukraine’s Tax Administration Chief Mykola Azarov allegedly overstepping his mandate, facts of which have been leaked by maverick SBU mayor Mykola Melnychenko, have all been excluded from the agenda. The lawmakers are also to consider a draft resolution on reforming the electoral system, a bill on elections of people’s deputies, and a bill put forward by the president which, if voted to become law, would foresee writing off and rescheduling debts for rent, public utilities, consumed natural gas and electric power, and a bill on amendments to the Law On State Guarantees of Refunds of Ukrainian Citizens’ Deposits, as well as a bill on a single social security tax. Additionally, the lawmakers will consider a draft resolution on setting up an interim fact-finding commission in Verkhovna Rada to look into causes of the critical situation in the Ukrainian aviation sector as well as discuss the information furnished by the National Bank on the fundamentals of the monetary and credit policy of Ukraine for 2003, and a report on the activity of the State Securities and Stock Market Commission in 2000-2001, as well as a State Property Fund report on the implementation of the 2001 privatization plan.
