Maidan

Some words about one of the advantages of the current “Orange regime”, compared with the former “Blue guard” together with Kuchma-ites.

I would like to describe the situation which I was a direct part of today, 3 December 2005. I am writing this not in order to boast, but in order, on the eve of the elections, to give certain food for thought about one
of the positive aspects of the “Orange regime”. For me personally, the facts that I will cite here give rise to a huge number of questions, among which possibly the most important is: how likely is it that this initiative will become the rule in the future? And not only for “Ukrnafta”, but for other stock companies?

Anyway, I am the owner of a share certificate in my name confirming ownership of shares of the open joint stock company Ukrnafta to the tune of 34 shares, each worth 25 kopecks. I obtained these shares during the voucher privatization of the beginning of the 1990s in exchange for exactly 1 voucher in my name. I would remind people that these were the vouchers which were given on an individual basis, and not as compensation for savings which had lost their value. From time to time, people got in touch with me or with my parents (it’s interesting how they found out my contact details and what this says about privacy). They were really persistent in offering to buy the shares at a price which ranged from 100 UH (hryvnia) at somewhere around the second half of the 1990s to 150 USD a couple of years ago. I constantly refused since 150 dollars was not an amount of money I was seriously bothered about, and shares don’t need to be fed. Although I know plenty of people who in the period of penury under Lazarenko’s government of the second half of the 90s were prepared, for a pittance, to sell if not the vouchers, then the actual shares.

Over a month ago I received a letter by post which informed me of the dividends for 2004 which I could receive in any branch of the bank “Privatbank”. I didn’t have time to follow it up especially since the previous two such payments I had received in past years had come to around 20 and 40 UH, respectively and therefore I felt no great motivation to go running off to “Privatbank”.

I went to a branch of “Privatbank” today. When they told me the amount in dividends that I could receive at the cash window, I couldn’t believe my ears: 723 hryvnia, 91 kopecks (so that’s where it is, the money that goes on financing one of the deviants from the “Maidan” website!). This is the amount, which is now not much less than my monthly salary and which is equal to around 150 USD, which I was offered for my packet of shares in the Kuchma days. The question arises: where did that money go in previous years if one assumes that the profits of the company were then about the same as now? Moreover, having searched on the Internet under Ukrnafta and Ivchenko, I found an interesting piece of information on: http://ivchenko.org.ua/ukr/content/view/113/46/ which said that they were planning to use maybe 50, or even 100 percent of the clean profit in 2004 in order to make dividend payments. Even if I was given 100 percent today, where did such incredible sums of money vanish in past years? Has something really changed in my country in the year which has gone by? I don’t know, but I hope that the information I have provided here may be of use to some “Maidan” readers in analysing the current situation, the approximate profits of the Kuchma-ites and / or the possible sources for the financing of the Yanukovych brigade from Ukrnafta in previous years.

Incidentally, on my parents’ voucher I bought shares in Lvivoblenergo [Lviv region energy company] (1 voucher, and a sugar factor in the Rivne region (1 voucher). On the compensation certificates we bought shares in the department store “Ukraina” in Kyiv. However since that time I haven’t heard a peep out of them. Because? …
Viacheslav Khavrus, contributor to the “Maidan” website