UNIAN News, Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, June 27, 2003

Ex-Vice-Premier for agricultural-industrial complex Leonid Kozachenko, against who the General Prosecutor's Office [has filed charges], still has a status of the advisor of Prime-Minister of Ukraine Victor Yanukovych.

Such a conclusion is based on the normative-legal acts of the Cabinet of Ministers. Thus, in line with the informational basis of the government, placed at the united web-portal of the Ukrainian executive power, L.Kozachenko was appointed the advisor of V.Yanukovych with CMU resolution #1924 dated November 28, 2002. At the same time, so far, there is no resolution about ousting of L.Kozachenko from this position.

Today L.Kozachenko, for the first time since his bailment, plans to meet with journalists.

As reported earlier by UNIAN, Kozachenko was arrested on March 24, after he was accused of abusing his office for allowing under-priced grain exports that caused domestic producers to lose an estimated Hr 1.5 billion.

The PGO announced on April 5 that Kozachenko would also be charged with soliciting $282,000 in bribes from the Ukrainian subsidiaries of AstaZeneca and Novartis Agro, agrochemical companies that held shares in Ukragrobiznes, a joint venture Kozachenko established and managed during the 1990s.

The Kyiv Appeals Court on April 7 upheld a lower court ruling authorizing Kozachenko's pre-trial detention, saying that, if released, he could prevent prosecutors from conducting an impartial investigation.

Prosecutors formally charged Kozachenko on May 16.

During the 1990s, Kozachenko created one of the country's most prosperous agricultural products distribution companies before being tagged to manage agricultural policy from June 2001 to November 2002.

Appointed in 1991 to run the marketing and licensing directorate of the Agriculture Ministry, the former collective farm chairman went on to head the Ukrainian League of Agro-Industrial Complex Entrepreneurs for eight years before becoming president of the Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation in 1999.

Kozachenko also ran Ukragrobiznes, a joint venture formed in 1991 by a consortium of Western agrochemical companies, two Ukrainian banks and the Agriculture Ministry.

The company, which in 1998 had 23 direct subsidiaries, imported and distributed fertilizers, seeds and farming equipment across the country, providing services and equipment to farms as well as trading on domestic and export commodity markets. It owned controlling stakes in several joint ventures and between 3 percent and 4 percent of agricultural lender Bank Ukraina.

Ukragrobiznes saw cash revenues of about $20 million in 1998.