The statement of SPFU ex-chief Valentyna Semeniuk-Samsonenko that as if the State Property Fund of Ukraine returned the guarantee participation fee to Russia`s Azot-Service Ltd., which had bid in a tender for the acquisition of a 99.52% stake in the Odesa Pre-Port Plant(OPZ), is not true.
Acting State Property Fund chief of Ukraine Andriy Portnov claimed this in an interview with TV 5 Kanal on Monday.
According to him, “the information that the participation fee was returned to the investor does not correspond to reality. In line with the government’s resolution, V.Semeniuk-Samsonenko was deprived of right to sign bills”. “As for me, I also did not sign any resolutions to return the participation fee to the investor”, he added.
Earlier A.Portnov claimed that the State Treasury of Ukraine blocked all currency and hryvnia accounts of the State Property Fund of Ukraine, which were subject to V.Semeniuk-Samsonenko.
As UNIAN reported earlier, on Monday the State Property Fund press-service disclosed to UNIAN that the participation fee was returned to a Russian company after State Property Fund chief Valentyna Semeniuk-Samsonenko signed a resolution canceling the tender on the Odessa Pre-Port plant sale.
The tender on the sale of the 99.52% Odessa Pre-Port Plant stake was announced on February 20. The starting price was set at 3 billion.
In mid-April, President Viktor Yushchenko forbade the government to sell OPZ, arguing that it was not feasible to sell the plant’s ammonia transshipment complex, which is the terminus of the Togliatti-Odesa ammonia pipeline.
On April 25, Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko announced that the Okryzhny administrative court in Kyiv had struck down the presidential decree concerning OPZ. The OPZ privatization was restarted almost immediately.
On the same day, Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko installed Andriy Portnov as new chief of the State Property Fund of Ukraine. This time the Prosecutor-General’s Office intervened, canceling Semeniuk’s suspension from SPFU head post by Tymoshenko. Speaking later at a talk-show on Inter TV, Semeniuk said that she would not go until parliament replaced her.
