Verkhovna Rada agreed on February 7 to dismiss Ivan Drach as chairman of the State Committee for Information Policies, Television, and Radio and to appoint People’s Deputy Ivan Chyzh to this office. Out of 407 deputies, 253 voted for and 34 against the dismissal, while the appointment was supported by 282 and objected to by 7 votes of the 396 deputies present, Interfax-Ukraine reports.
It will be recalled that Ivan Chyzh has been a people’s deputy of Verkhovna Rada of the second and third convocations. He headed the body’s Committee on the Freedom of Speech and Information from July 1998 until the so-called velvet parliamentary revolution of 2000 and is currently deputy chairman of the committee. He leads the Justice All-Ukrainian Left Alliance and is running in a territorial district.
Mr. Chyzh agreed to comment to The Day on his appointment and answered some questions over the phone.
“Mr. Chyzh, can we already address you as chairman of the State Committee for Information Policies?”
“No. I will be confirmed in office by a presidential decree to that effect. Yet, Verkhovna Rada’s decision is in this case a crucial point, for the President can only confirm somebody’s powers after parliament has given its consent to appointment.”
“What first steps are you going to take in the new office?”
“I must first make a general appraisal of the State Committee for Information Policies, see its structure and the staff employed. Then I will begin specific work to form a proper structure and a team of executives. In a word, I will be, first of all, solving organizational problems. In a broader sense, I must study in depth the situation in all segments of this sector, for it is a very multifaceted sector: the press, television, radio, book publication, printing facilities, etc. I’ll have to study all aspects, including the technical side of the matter: I must see what new technologies could be implemented and so on. For instance, I wonder why the State Committee has lost some sub-sectors, such as the RRT Company, which should in fact carry out its orders. In a word, I must look into the situation and establish a bridgehead for the government and presidential decisions, without which no restructuring will be possible.”
“Which trends in the work of the former State Committee for Information Policies are you going to support or reject? Have you made a decision?”
“You know that the State Committee for Information Policies is a constitutional structure. There are not so many structures in Ukraine that rest on both the legislative and the executive branches of power. And I would like information policies to meet these high standards. Unfortunately, this is not the case today. In other words, this structure should really formulate the informational — in the broad sense — policy in the state and work relying on the law, the legislative, and the executive branches of government, including the institution of the presidency.
“I am not prepared now to assess individual segments of the information sphere. But, if we take an integrated approach, there is a problem. We do have a State Committee for Information Policies, but do not have a government information policy as such in the broad sense.”
