On May 18, by 242 votes the Ukrainian parliament adopted a state privatization program for 2000-2002. Following the request of the government, lawmakers for the first time adopted a 3-year long program. The program is based on a new concept of privatization which involves individual approaches taken to enterprises which are to be sold off. Such approaches provide for the establishment of an investor demand for each specific property. The way in which the property is to be privatized is to be based on this demand.
State property is to be sold only to industrial investors, the bill runs.
The Supreme Council of Ukraine on May 18 approved, in the final reading, changes to the Criminal Code. Proposed by MP Oleksandr Shekhovtsov, these changes cancel a criminal liability for illegal currency transactions. The same violations committed by a group of persons or a person who was earlier imprisoned for an analogous crime were punishable by 5 to 10 years of imprisonment, with all the property and currency values confiscated. Under the new law, all the citizens imprisoned for the above violations are to be released, all criminal cases filed for such actions are to be closed and all sentences imposed canceled. SDA Technologies Inc. All rights reserved.