By Vitaly KNIAZHANSKY, The Day
The morning warmup at Verkhovna Rada last Tuesday left one the unpleasant
aftertaste of bauxite. Previously, the government resolved to dismiss Vitaly
Mieshyn, chairman of the board of the publicly-owned Mykolayiv Alumina
Plant, a step promptly endorsed by the Ministry of Industrial Policy and
National Corporate Rights Agency. He was replaced by Mykola Naboka, a complete
unknown.
The outraged lawmakers making up the special committee to investigate
the MAP case prepared a statement, asking the Cabinet who gave it the right
to ignore the parliamentary resolution banning any action regarding MAP
before the committee's report and why the government was ignoring the law
on economic associations, allowing a board chairman to be dismissed only
on the strength of a general meeting decision.
Meanwhile, MAP workers staged pickets by Parliament, demanding Mieshyn's
reinstatement. A meeting gathered at the plant that same morning, and the
ousted manager delivered a scathing speech.
The Day was told by the MAP office in Kyiv that Vitaly Mieshyn, assisted
by friends, resorted to a revolutionary tactic and broke into his office
at 2 a.m. on Tuesday, resuming his seat, albeit temporarily.
As for his official replacement, Interfax Ukraine reports that Mykola
Naboka worked until recently as director general of a mining combine in
Kazakhstan. According to the pickets, the first thing he did on arriving
in Mykolayiv was change the security guards at the plant and the previous
manager's secretary. He also issued a directive aimed at reducing the social
sphere. Naturally, the workers want their old manager back.
All things considered, they must have won some sympathy in Parliament.
Speaker Tkachenko promised that he would instruct the General Prosecutor
to contest the National Corporate Rights Agency's dismissal's order. The
Day received an interesting statement from a group of People's Deputies
led by the head of the MAP investigating committee Ihor Kviatkovsky. Among
other things, the document reads that Mykola Naboka works hand in glove
with the Trans World Group (TWG), a multinational corporation, adding that
prior to appointing him the new manager Premier Pustovoitenko met with
Boris Berezovsky and TWG representative Dmitry Basov. Naboka's appointment
is direct evidence of the Pustovoitenko government's involvement in a conspiracy
with ill-famed politicians and firms to conduct a policy aimed at destroying
domestic production.
German Tkachenko, vice president of the Russian aluminum giant Sibalko,
told The Day, "Naboka represents the TWG managerial team and if
the decision on his appointment is sustained, MAP management and all financial
flows will be guided in a vein best suiting this industrial group with
its ill reputation in Russia and Kazakhstan. TWG head Lev Chorny is popularly
known as Boris Berezovsky's wallet."
Mykola Naboka makes no secret of his TWG connections. In an interview
with the Ukrayinski Novyny Agency he said, "I brought [buyers'] proposals
covering the plant's two-year output program, with better wages and higher
costs. Most likely the Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant (controlled by Lev Chorny
- Ed.) will be our partner."
And further on: "In this market one cannot but reckon with transnational
aluminum corporations, otherwise one may end up boycotted as in 1997. We
will reach an understanding and no one will hurt the interests of our enterprise."
According to Volodymyr Novozhylov, head of the MAP Work Collective Co.,
which holds a 26.4% interest in the MAP statutory fund, the MAP working
body regards Mieshyn's dismissal as MAP being placed under TWG control
(in 1998, TWG held a controlling interest in the Don Alumina Plant, then
headed by Mr. Naboka, reports Ukrayinski Novyny).
Industrial Policy Minister Vasyl Hureyev, however, believes that Mieshyn's
removal has nothing to do with TWG attempts to get MAP under its control.
"I draw no parallels between the new manager's appointment and TWG's coming,"
he told Ukrayinski Novyny.
