The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) has charged Ihor Nasalyk, Ukraine’s minister of energy and the coal industry, with failing to declare a loan of $1.25 million on his annual income and assets declaration, the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office said on July 9.
The NABU found that Nasalyk received the loan from an unidentified individual in 2014 but failed to include it in his declaration, as required by law.
If convicted, Nasalyk faces up to two years in jail or a fine of up to Hr 2.8 million (about $109,000.)
Nasalyk became a minister in April 2016. Before that, he was a lawmaker in then-President Petro Poroshenko’s party.
Nasalyk has denied the accusations. In an interview with the Glavkom news website, he claimed that Lviv businessman Petro Dyminsky lied to authorities that he gave Nasalyk a loan and that the minister didn’t pay it back, after which Dyminsky filed a complaint in court and with the NABU.
“Dyminsky is taking revenge on me because,when I was appointed, I refused to give his people posts in the energy sector,” Nasalyk told Glavkom.
Dyminsky, an owner of the Karpaty Lviv soccer club and a former owner of the ZIK television channel, is wanted in Ukraine after allegedly killing a woman with his car in 2017. He denied he was driving the car.
