RSS News headlinesKyiv, May 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) -- Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on May 6 gave regional gas distributing companies a month to redeem debts for gas supplies to Gaz Ukrainy Company, otherwise the companies would be put up for repeat sale following bankruptcy procedures.
"I instruct the Fuel and Energy Ministry, Naftogaz Ukrainy national company, the State Property Fund of Ukraine and the Economy Ministry to launch bankruptcy procedures if the debts of oblgaz companies are not cleared within a month," she said at a meeting with heads of regional state administrations in Kyiv on Tuesday.
Tymoshenko also ordered the drafting of a bill that will foresee the temporary appointment of state managers to regional gas distribution companies until the bankruptcy procedures and repeat privatizations are finished.
The premier also ordered the drawing up of a bill over the next week setting a date by which consumers are to be provided with gas meters.
She said that gas distribution networks were in a critical condition.
"The system of gas supplies through gas networks has been completely destroyed," Tymoshenko said, adding that the authorities had already forgotten about the gas explosion tragedy in Dnipropetrovsk.
She said Ukraine is now reaping the consequences of a "brainlessly held privatization in the gas sector." Tymoshenko said that gas distribution networks had actually been given for free to private companies.
