Two things were in the public limelight on December 19. The book Ukrainian Coal Miner Heroes of Labor by Mykola Surhai and Serhiy Fishchenko was presented under the chairmanship (quoted from the message The Day received from the Ministry of Fuel and Energy) of Fuel and Energy Minister Vitaly Haiduk. We borrowed the headline from this book about meritorious “extractors of the solar stone.”
That same day we also learned that the Accounting Chamber board had concluded that the state budget funds management system instituted by this same ministry was not conducive to achieving the main goal of commissioning new coal producing facilities. The auditors made this conclusion after examining the way the Ministry for Fuel and Energy had utilized the investment-oriented funds against the state budget item on governmental support for coal-mining facilities during the first nine months of 2001.
It follows from the chamber board decision that the Ministry for Fuel and Energy has not fulfilled the government’s Program for the Development of the Coal- Mining Industry and the Social Sphere in the Coal-Mining Regions for a Period to 2005 and the Program of Reformation and Financial Improvement of Ukraine’s Coal-Mining Enterprises for 2000. Ineffective management of funds and violations of current law by the ministry and lack of adequate internal supervision of spending have led to the illegal and improper utilization of the budgetary money, the Accounting Chamber claims. In particular, inadequate ministerial supervision over the way coal mines conducted material and equipment tenders and violation of the law On Purchasing Goods, Operations, and Services for Governmental Funds resulted in the loss of UAH 659.4 million during the first nine months of 2001.
Still, you really cannot do without coal, as a poet said, on these frosty days in Ukraine. Thus, during a recent business forum in Kharkiv, the government had to sign an agreement with the Republic of Komi, Russia, on the supply of 900,000 tons of metallurgical and electricity generating coal to Ukraine. It is a rhetorical question whether this will improve payments to Ukrainian miners for the coal they have extracted.
Meanwhile First Vice Premier Oleh Dubyna, Fuel and Energy Minister Haiduk, and a string of former coal-mining ministers (in the photo) are focusing their attention today, as we see, on entirely different things. Of course, the industry’s top officials should promote the prestige of mine labor. Yet, perhaps it would be better to do this in a different way — not by resorting to showy stunts but by fulfilling the government’s approved programs of reform and revitalization of the coal industry.
