The Ukrainian parliament dismissed Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk on June 7, with 254 lawmakers agreeing to Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman’s request to fire the minister for misconduct.
Danylyuk’s deputy Oksana Markarova will take his place in an acting capacity until his replacement is appointed.
Groysman and Danylyuk had been in an open confrontation for over a month, with Danylyuk making a series of public statements criticizing the Ukrainian government. Groysman finally asked parliament on June 6 to fire the minister.
“I’m being accused of showing off the dirty linen,” Danylyuk said in his short speech before the vote to remove him.
In parliament, Groysman said that Danylyuk had been spreading false information among Ukraine’s international partners ahead of negotiations with the European Union. Groysman said a letter that Danylyuk had sent to EU officials in May about the situation in Ukraine “was totally unclear and improper for me.” He said he had given Danylyuk “two weeks to fix the situation.”
The European Union approved another 1 billion euros in loans for the country on May 29, despite the fact that Ukraine had failed to meet its conditions.
Danylyuk said in the parliament that the letter to EU officials had not contained anything that was not already well known, including, he said, that “the State Fiscal Service has been working with a half-legitimate and completely controlled head for over a year.”
That’s why the reform of the State Fiscal Service is not happening, Danylyuk said, adding that the state body is also corrupt.
Danylyuk initiated the ouster of State Fiscal Service Head Roman Nasirov in January on charges of abusing his powers. After that, Groysman appointed a former acting deputy head of the service, Myroslav Prodan, as its acting head, and transferred control over the body directly to the Cabinet of Ministers.
Danylyuk said this was a typical situation for all state bodies in Ukraine.
“There is weakness, bias, corruption, and an absence of trust from the citizens,” he said. “And this is what discredits Ukraine in the eyes of the whole world, and makes us weaker. And if you disagree with what I am saying – vote for my dismissal.”
Danylyuk also congratulated the parliament on adopting the law on setting up an anti-corruption court earlier on June 7. The law was a key demand of the International Monetary Fund for it to continue its $17.5 billion bailout program for Ukraine.
Earlier, Danylyuk and Groysman were in open conflict in an exchange of posts on Facebook. The former finance minister wrote that he was constantly under pressure to give state budget money to the projects of local lawmakers as a part of subvention program for the regions through decentralization reform.
“Today I was offered a choice – to become a participant of this scheme, or to leave,” Danylyuk wrote on Facebook on June 4.
In an interview with online news website Yevropeyska Pravda on June 4, Danylyuk said that lawmaker Ihor Kononenko, a close ally of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, had tried to install, Ihor Umansky, a former acting finance minister in the government of former Prime Minister Yuila Tymoshenko, as a deputy finance minister to lobby for his interests. Kononenko denies the allegation.
Groysman gave assurances that the Ministry of Finance would continue to work well without Danylyuk.
“There is a strong team (at the ministry), we will work fine in future,” Groysman said at parliament while speaking in support of his request to fire the finance minister.
The prime minister also said that he was sorry that Danylyuk didn’t understand why he had requested his resignation.
