The Cabinet of Ministers on March 3 suspended State Fiscal Service chief Roman Nasirov amid a graft investigation in which he’s suspected of causing losses to the state worth Hr 2 billion ($74 million.)
His deputy, Myroslav Prodan, was appointed as the acting chief of the agency.
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine said that Nasirov is officially in custody. The bureau said he was still at Kyiv’s Feodania Hospital, but bureau employees were permanently guarding the premises.
The hospital employees said Nasirov had suffered a heart attack, though the anti-corruption bureau and Nasirov’s critics argue that he could have pretended to be sick to escape arrest – a common practice among Ukrainian officials. He turned 38 years old on March 3.
The anti-graft bureau on March 2 gave a notice of suspicion to Nasirov in an embezzlement case linked to state-controlled natural gas producer Ukrgazvydobuvannya.
He is accused of illegally allowing participants of the alleged corruption scheme to delay tax payments.
Artem Sytnyk, head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, said at a news briefing on March 3 that the case would soon be sent to trial, while Ukraine’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytsky said the investigation was expected to be completed within two months. Kholodnytsky also said Nasirov had tried to flee abroad.
In an interview with the Obozrevatel news site on March 2, Nasirov dismissed the accusations against him and criticized the National Anti-Corruption Bureau.
“The case related to firms linked to (fugitive lawmaker Oleksandr) Onyshchenko is collapsing,” Nasirov said. “To save their reputation and boost their public relations, they seek to implicate the State Fiscal Service.”
Meanwhile, Nasirov’s replacement, Prodan, is also controversial.
Last year Radio Liberty reported that Prodan was being investigated in two abuse of power cases linked to walnut exports.
Odesa Oblast Governor Mikheil Saakashvili has also accused Pavlo Demchyna, a deputy chief of the Security Service of Ukraine and a protégé of pro-presidential lawmakers Igor Kononenko and Oleksandr Hranovsky, of involvement in the scheme.
Prodan, an ally of Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, and Demchyna deny the corruption accusations.
Employees of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau giving a notice of suspicion to State Fiscal Service Chief Roman Nasirov on March 2.
Political implications
Nasirov’s arrest could have major political implications and is seen as part of a conflict between President Petro Poroshenko and the relatively independent National Anti-Corruption Bureau.
Nasirov, a protégé of Poroshenko’s former chief of staff Boris Lozhkin, could give politically sensitive testimony implicating the country’s leadership.
Onyshchenko, a suspect in the same corruption case that involves Nasirov, told Rossiya 24 television last year that President Petro Poroshenko had instructed the State Fiscal Service to delay tax payments for natural gas firms and used the money to finance Poroshenko’s political projects. Poroshenko has repeatedly denied Onyshchenko’s allegations, dismissing them as a smear campaign orchestrated by the Kremlin.
Investigative journalist Dmytro Gnap on March 2 cited Onyshchenko as saying last year that Poroshenko had given the instructions on delaying tax payments directly to Nasirov.
For that purpose, Onyshchenko said he had bought a firm with about $130 million on accounts with Ukraine’s state-owned Oshchadbank. He said the company had been purchased from Serhiy Arbuzov, who was acting prime minister under ex-President Viktor Yanukovych.
However, Onyshchenko seemed to have changed his stance on March 2, when he said that he had had no “monetary dealings” with Nasirov and lashed out at the National Anti-Corruption Bureau.
Poroshenko commented on the Nasirov case by saying on March 3 that the anti-corruption bureau was “an independent body.”
A major opponent of Nasirov and Poroshenko, former Odesa Oblast Customs Chief Yulia Marushevska, wrote on March 3 that the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) were searching her apartment as part of an unknown criminal case. Marushevska, who has accused Nasirov of corruption, said she saw this as “pressure by the authorities” and their response to Nasirov’s arrest.
Marushevska said on Feb. 8 that SBU Deputy Chief Demchyna had asked the National Agency for Preventing Corruption to investigate her over an $18 bonus that she awarded to herself. She interpreted the case as a political vendetta.
State Fiscal Service Chief Roman Nasirov being taken out of the hospital on a stretcher to the emergency department after allegedly suffering a heart attack late on March 2.
Nasirov’s ties
Apart from Poroshenko, Nasirov was also reportedly supported by tycoon Igor Kolomoisky. Saakashvili has accused Nasirov of promoting the interests of Vitaly Khomutynnyk, a political ally of Kolomoisky and formerly an associate of Yanukovych. Another ally of Kolomoisky – Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov – has defended Nasirov on Facebook.
Nasirov has denied the corruption accusations.
Meanwhile, Nasirov’s former deputy Kostyantyn Likarchuk has claimed that Nasirov was restoring corruption schemes linked to Igor Kaletnik, who was chief of the customs agency under Yanukovych.
In 2015 Likarchuk published a document according to which the police had started a corruption investigation against Gennady Romanenko, a former advisor to Nasirov. However, they had to close it under pressure from top officials, Likarchuk added. Romanenko used to be an associate of Kaletnik.
Repressive policies
Nasirov has also been criticized for cracking down on IT companies by conducting unjustified tax inspections and discouraging investment in this sector.
Moreover, Nasirov has defended the tax police, a notoriously corrupt Soviet relic. It was eventually abolished under pressure by the public and Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk in January.
The Justice Ministry’s lustration department also argues that Nasirov had sabotaged the firing of officials with unexplained wealth under the lustration law, failing to dismiss a single top official for that.
Nasirov’s property declarations have also raised eyebrows. In his electronic declaration for 2016, he declared land plots with an area of 283,093 square meters, as well as $1.16 million, 450,000 euros and Hr 4.35 million in cash. He and his wife also declared five apartments and three houses.
He had also been criticized for failing to declare two luxury apartments in London.
