President suspends government’s decrees

President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko has suspended the decree of the Cabinet of Ministers on the removal of Valentyna Semeniuk from the State Property Fund leadership.

This is said in the President’s decree dated 7 February (#106/2008) “On suspending the decrees of the Cabinet of Ministers of 6 February 2008 #201-r, 203-r, 204-r, and 208-r”.

According to the decree, the Cabinet of Ministers, with its decrees of 6 February “dismissed the State Property Fund of Ukraine chiefs, ordered to carry out an official investigation into the facts of violating the legislation by the SPFU leadership, and remove V.Semeniuk from the post of the SPFU chief for the period of the investigation”.

At the same time, the President stressed, considering that the Law “On State Property Provatization”, and the Temporary Provision on SPFU define this institution as a state agency, carrying out state policy in the sphere of state property privatization, the above-mentioned decrees of the Cabinet of Ministers are contrary to the Ukrainian Constitution. In line with the Constitution, the government does not have authority to solve staff issues concerning appointing and dismissing chiefs of central executive power agencies.

Considering these facts, the President suspended the government’s decree of February 6, concerning dismissal of Victor Petrov, Anatoliy Hrynenko, Oleksander Potymkov from the posts of the SPFU deputy chiefs. The President also suspended the government’s decree #208-r “On Carrying Our Official Investigation”.

The Decree joins into force since the day of its publication.

As UNIAN reported earlier, on February 6, the government dismissed V.Semeniuk from the post of the State Property Fund chief, and appointed Andriy Portnov as acting SPFU chief.