Sytnyk Must Go: MPs Stand Up for Agri-Sector

Andriy Nikolayenko MP of the Batkivshchyna [Fatherland] faction made that statement during a speech at the Verkhovna Rada, according to Depo.ua.

Dear colleagues! I believe Ukrainian industrialists and businesses need support. Government support. If we want to enter foreign markets, he said.

Nikolayenko took the floor when parliament was debating bill №3793 proposing amendments the Law of Ukraine On Measures to Achieve Massive Expansion of Ukrainian Goods and Services by Providing Export Insurance, Guarantees and Subsidised Lending aimed at strengthening the national export credit agency.

We are now discussing efforts to expand Ukrainian exports while outside the walls of the Verkhovna Rada people are standing in the frost…. Because existing Ukrainian enterprises, experienced exporters that continue operating are being destroyed by the law enforcement system. Because a certain public official who has been found guilty of corruption by Ukrainian court, Mr Sytnyk, is waging war on a certain industrialist and entrepreneur, the MP emphasised.

He reminded lawmakers that thousands of Ukrainians are working outside the walls of government offices in Ukraine’s agri-sector.

This includes those working to produce exportable commodities that we are so eager to support. They are losing their jobs, Nikolayenko added.

According to the MP, this is a crucial choice. Which takes precedence? Personal revenge and squaring accounts between certain public officials and businessmen or tens of thousands of jobs that Ukraine is losing over this stupid conflict.  

I’m strongly committed to helping Ukraine become a strong export-focused economy. In particular those enterprises that have been built from scratch and those in the sectors where Ukraine’s position is strong, such as margarine and vegetable oil, poultry farming… we all received eggs on our way in. So, if we don’t want to see them thrown at us but have them on the table, we should support such enterprises, stated Nikolayenko.

He condemns those law enforcement officers who are destroying them.

Exports should be supported but Sytnyk must go, Nikolayenko concluded.

Just as a reminder, it was reported earlier that employees of Ukrlandfarming rallied outside the Verkhovna Rada to demand that NABU Director Artem Sytnyk  stop putting pressure on the company.

The farmworkers also laid 37 wreaths outside the parliament building – one for each of the enterprises that Ukrlandfarming has had to shut down under pressure from NABU.  

Ukrlandfarming is one of Ukraine’s largest agroindustrial holding companies in crop and animal farming.

The company has operations in 22 regions of Ukraine. It is owned by the Ukrainian businessman Oleg Bakhmatyuk.  

FYI: NABU’s case against the former acting governor of the NBU, Oleskandr Pysaruk, and Oleg Bakhmatyuk concerns refinancing of VAB Bank by the NBU. Official expert reports, findings of the Deposit Guarantee Fund and statements by the NBU all refute NABU’s allegations in the case.

NABU Director Artem Sytnyk has found guilty of corruption and listed in the Register of Corrupt Officials of the National Corruption Prevention Agency of Ukraine. The chief witness for the prosecution in his case was an advisor to Bakhmatyuk’s sister.