After quitting government, Vinsky criticizes Tymoshenko, defends work at Transportation Ministry.
Yosyp Vinsky resigned as transportation minister on June 17, after a split with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko over her proposed alliance with the Party of the Regions. This is not the first time he quit a political camp in disagreement with its leader. In 2006, Vinsky left the Socialist Party after its leader, Oleksandr Moroz, struck a deal with the Party of the Regions and the Communists to form a majority in parliament. As a result, Moroz lost his voters’ trust and his party failed to get enough votes to get into parliament during two following elections.
According to recent polls, Vinsky is a virtual unknown to the voting public. But he says that he is now creating a new political party with a social democratic ideology. This would be Ukraine’s 170th political party. In an interview with the Kyiv Post on July 6, he also talked about his achievements as transport minister and his take on the upcoming presidential election.
KP: Do you think Tymoshenko and the Party of Regions will try again to form a coalition?
YV: Tymoshenko will try, but the Party of Regions won’t agree. I think they figured out that, after what Tymoshenko did, that she lost rating and isn’t really a competitor for [Victor] Yanukovych any longer. Today she is technical candidate for Yanukovych. She will reach the run-off together with him and then will lose it.
KP: What does she gain being just a technical candidate?
YV: She will gain half a year of being a prime minister, but after Yanukovych is elected [president], she won’t be the prime minister any longer.
KP: Who do you think will be the next transportation minister?
YV: Tariel Vasadze’s candidacy was discussed for the transport minister’s post. He knows business well and has good management skills. If he builds on our achievements everything will be fine. [Ukraine’s No. 1 auto tycoon, Vasadze owns Ukraine’s ZAZ automobile manufacturing plant in Zaporizhya and a vast network of car dealerships via his Ukravto Corporation. He is a member of Tymoshenko’s bloc in parliament.]
KP: What is the economic situation at state companies subordinate to the transportation ministry?
YV: While the general economic decline was 20 percent, the slowdown in the transport sphere was 10 percent. I am not saying everything is perfect: we provide services. If there is no cargo, we have nothing to ship. But all our companies were paying taxes from their revenues and paid salaries on time.
I left the ministry in good financial state. But the ministry is now beheaded not only in terms of lacking a minister. Four of my deputies where dismissed last week. They managed key sectors – communications, automobile transport, general investment and logistics, security. It is a serious blow to the ministry.
KP: What was your strategy for Ukrzaliznytsya (the state railway company) development?
YV: We developed a program of reform. From September the program has been shelved in the government. It has not been approved until now because of the prime minister’s opposition.
KP: What was in the program?
YV: First, we proposed to create a single legal entity instead of the existing structure, [with separate state railway companies are managed under a single Ukrzaliznytsya holding.] Currently we have six separate railways with special intersections where carriages are passed from one railway to another. So, one railway loads the carriages, the second transports it, the third unloads it. Calculating who receives money – and for what – is very confusing.
Private investors should be allowed to access segments related to people and cargo transportation. And the infrastructure should remain in state ownership. I mean railways, stations, management system, and communications.
KP: What is the situation with Ukraine’s transportation infrastructure in preparation for the country’s hopes to co-host the Euro 2012 football championship?
YV: Infrastructure is technically backward but in working order. From 1991 no airports had been reconstructed except Boryspil. In the last year-and-a-half we reconstructed 80 percent of Donetsk airport runway, built a new runway in Zulyany and developed plans for Lviv and Kharkiv. For domestic flights, we use planes that are 30–40 years old. Ninety-two percent of trains are out-of-date and they still transport people. Their average speed is 34 kilometers per hour, while on French railways it is 320 kilometers per hour. The level of wear and tear of cranes at seaports is 82 percent. Nothing has been renewed for the last 19 years. We started doing it, but the crisis stopped us.
KP: Is there anything else that prevents reform in the sector?
YV: General sluggishness of the state apparatus. The draft law on seaports has been in parliament for a year, same goes for the air code. The latter document was not even written in Ukraine. The International Civil Aviation Organization checked every letter there. We are on their blacklist, and are kept away from a number of routes. Our legislation doesn’t match [international] standards. We drafted a new law, but the Verkhovna Rada has been unwilling to approve it for a year.
