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in the country's parliament a bill amending the criminal code with the aim to return criminal responsibility for illicit enrichment of the nation's officials.
6.1.2 Budget dynamics - privatization
Ukrainian state-controlled producer of turbine equipment Turboatom increased its net profit by 7.6% year-on-year to UAH764mn ($29mn) in 2018, according to Ukrainian business media. The Ukrainian government is going to sell a stake in Turboatom as a part of its privatisation efforts. However, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said in May 2018 that the state would retain 51% of shares in the producer "We have one goal: to retain 51% in state ownership. This means that this will be a state-owned company," the PM said. "Maybe, we would attract a globally renowned international partner with impeccable reputation for 20-25% of shares, maybe, at a public tender. They would enter the capital of the plant and hire 7,000 people, and not 3,500 as it is now." The prime minister said that the government intends to move "transparently and carefully, taking into account the opinion of the company's managers".
The Ukrainian authorities are going to put up for sale a controlling stake in state power producer Centrenergo again in April , following December's failure to conduct a privatisation tender, according to head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPF) Vitaliy Trubarov. The SPF together with the investment adviser, Ernst & Young, continues to work on preparing Centrenergo for sale. "The plans to privatise this asset remained unchanged, and in April we will again put Centrenergo up for auction," Trubarov wrote on his Facebook page on March 28. Earlier, the Ukrainian cabinet approved a starting price for the sale of the 78.3% stake in Centrenergo of UAH5.98bn ($210mn).In aseparateresolution, theUkrainiangovernmentapprovedthe conditions for the sale of the company. Specifically, the conditions provide for Centrenergo’s payment of dividends to the national budget in the amount of 30% of net profit for 2018, while the draft resolution contained the text on the payment of dividends in accordance with the standard approved by the government, which in 2017 was 75%, and 2016 50%. According to an earlier statement of the State Property Fund (SPF), the first tender was cancelled due to the fact that two participants - Ukrdoninvest and the production unitary enterprise Oil Bitumen Plant - are not allowed to participate in the tender, "since the documentation submitted by them does not meet the requirements of the legislation". Amongst the companies that announced an intention to bid were Ukraine’s largest private gas producing companies Ukrnaftoburinnia that is controlled by Ukraine’s richest man Ihor Kolomoisky. Kyiv-based company Forbes and Manhattan Ukraine, headed by member of the advisory board of the Canadian bank Forbes & Manhattan Mykhailo Spektor, also announced its intention to participate in the tender. In addition, Belarusian unitary enterprise Neftebitumen Plant, owned by one of the largest Belarusian oil traders Interservice; Tbilisi-headquartered Georgian International Energy Corporation; and, Kyiv-registered Balance Group (its ultimate beneficial owner is ex-people's deputy Dmytro Kriuchkov, detained in Germany in July and suspected of embezzling Zaporizhiaoblenergo funds), were expected to take part in the tender. Centrenergo consists of three thermal power plants – Vuhlehirska, Zmiivska, and Trypilska. Their combined installed capacity is 7.665 GW, which is 14% of Ukraine's overall power generation capacity. Centrenergo supplies electricity to Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Donetsk regions.
33 UKRAINE Country Report April 2019 www.intellinews.com