On January 26, Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko introduced to President Kuchma his candidate for the post of vice premier for industrial policy. That same day the president signed the decree appointing Oleh Dubyna to his new post.
According to the premier, he had agreed on his candidacy in a telephone conversation with Pres. Kuchma on Thursday. The premier declared that his nominee is “an industrialist from the regions,” avoiding, however, naming him. Yushchenko commented on the criteria he used to select the new member of his team. He said he had held the required consultations and looked through files of candidates showing “professionalism, maximum of political impartiality, ambition, selfishness, and whose hands were clean,” Interfax-Ukraine reported. Yushchenko noted that Pres. Kuchma supported such an approach for candidate selection. “Tomorrow (i.e., January 26), I am going to take my nominee to the President and I hope his appointment will be approved the next day,” Mr. Yushchenko said. Well- informed sources close to the Presidential Administration, however, maintain that Yushchenko’s original choice was Zaporizhzhia Oblast Governor Oleksiy Kucherenko.
The fact that Oleh Dubyna entered Kuchma’s office as the candidate to run Ukraine’s fuel and electricity sector and emerged as vice premier for industrial policy could be viewed as Yushchenko’s second defeat, hidden from the public eye as it was. Commenting on the need to preserve the post of vice premier for the fuel and electricity sector, Yushchenko has said earlier that “the problems in this sector have been accumulating for years,” admitting the existence of “serious bottlenecks” there. “Restructuring the fuel and electricity sector into an effectively operating market is a very challenging task,” the premier continued. Later on, he changed his mind apparently after his talk with the president. Oleh Dubyna’s responsibilities have consequently snowballed, reaching those of a first vice premier in the former governments.
Oleh Dubyna, Kryvorizhstal (Kryvy Rih Steel) general manager, has recently topped the list of candidates for the post of vice premier responsible for the fuel and energy sector. Few doubted that young and promising steel maker Dubyna was President Kuchma’s only choice, with Yushchenko being left with no other alternative but to accept it. Suffice it to recall Kuchma’s memorable gesture when the President himself dropped Kryvorizhstal from the list of enterprises slated for privatization because of the plant’s impressive UAH 1 billion net profit earned in the first ten months of 2000.
As Nezavisimaya gazeta, Russia’s self-styled authority on things Ukrainian, put it, Premier Yushchenko was ready to accept Mr. Dubyna’s candidacy in exchange for Ivan Plachkov, the former fuel and energy minister and the present head of Kyivenerho, becoming the minister of fuel and energy and on condition that this time the minister would be directly responsible to the premier himself.
It is highly probable that Plachkov might have been used as a counterweight to Dubyna’s promotion. Should this be the case, it would certainly indicate Yushchenko’s obvious intention to follow in Yuliya Tymoshenko’s footsteps in running the fuel and energy sector.
Incidentally, when asked by The Dayon the chances about her boss’s promotion, Plachkov’s press secretary, Natalia Ivanova, responded, “No one will ever answer this question,” thus not ruling out Plachkov’s possible ascent. On the heels of her dismissal, Mrs. Tymoshenko called the Minister of Fuel and Energy Serhiy Yermylov, the major culprit of the current slump in the fuel and energy sector, declaring, “No one else has hampered my work so much. It was absolute sabotage.” Having admitted that Yermylov was recommended for his post by Viktor Yushchenko and with her backing, she went on to state, “To my regret, he was a totally changed man a week after his appointment.”
According to Mrs. Tymoshenko, “if the present team in the Ministry of Fuel and Energy is retained, reforms in energy will be scrapped.” Meanwhile, addressing a January 17 meeting of members of the wholesale electricity market, Mr. Yermylov opted for a transition to free market rules in the fuel and energy sector. He criticized the present system, naming the lack of competition as one of its major shortcomings, and called for curbing the state regulation of the activities of energy companies. Yermylov announced plans to finalize for the second reading the bill on the wholesale electricity market. The bill initiated by People’s Deputy Mykhailo Pavlovsky was passed by parliament in its first reading in the fall of 1999. The bill is intended to radically reform the present energy market pattern by introducing direct contracts between producers and suppliers of electricity and by creating a competitive environment.
Viewing positively Dubyna’s appointment as vice premier, The Day’s experts note, however, that it may take a considerable time before this young technocrat will be able to learn intricacies of his new job. In this context, it would be quite proper to assume that the premier will lend Dubyna a helping hand, especially in issues related to energy, an area where Yushchenko has his own vision of the sector’s priorities.
Deputy Secretary of the Council for National Security and Defense and former Fuel and Energy Minister Serhiy Tulub told The Daythat Mr. Dubyna is “a knowledgeable, sensible and all right man. Unfortunately, even if he has been a manager this does not mean he knows everything there is to know about energy. What is today’s energy, oil and gas sector, coal industry, or nuclear power engineering? He will have to solve a host of issues, including rate setting.”
One Ukrainian lawmaker, who said he knows the newly appointed vice premier well, told The Daythat Dubyna is “a worthy candidate who should be supported in every possible way.” He is young, energetic, and supports free market patterns; he is a very progressive person in this respect.” While director of a steel plant, he “managed to improve his plant’s overall performance, converting a money- losing enterprise into a profitable one.” If Dubyna succeeds in implementing his managerial patterns in Ukraine’s industrial policy, the lawmaker continued, “ this would have a very positive impact.”
In his opinion, only a person independent of any political structures can effectively control the country’s industrial policy. “Dubyna has the courage to stand his ground under pressure from political groups, for he has no relations with any of them. Given the president’s and premier’s support, Dubyna will be able to weather the battle.”
Reference of The Day
Oleh Viktorovych Dubyna was born on March 20, 1959 in Dniprodzerzhynsk. He finished the Dniprodzerzhynsk Industrial Institute, majoring in Pig Iron Metallurgy. He began his career as agglomerate machine operator at the Dniprodzherzhynsk Steel Plant, moving on to become deputy head of DSP planning department and then deputy general director for economics. He earned his second Master’s Degree from the Dnipropetrovsk State University, majoring in Economic Management. In March 1998, He was appointed first deputy general manager for economics at the Alchevsk Metallurgical Plant, becoming its general director in August 1998. On November 29, 1999, he was appointed general director of the Kryvorizhstal Steel Plant.
