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TOMENKO CURIOUS ABOUT WHO FUNDED PRESIDENTIAL
NEW YEAR POSTCARDS IN UKRAINE..may total 17 million items
Deutsche Welle Radio
Interfax Ukraine
www.PRAVDA.com.ua
January 6, 2003
Mykola Tomenko, chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee for
Freedom of Speech and Information, intends to clarify the issue of
lawfulness and find out the source that funded printing and distribution
by Ukrpochta postal services of post cards with New Year greetings
from the president of Ukraine to citizens of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian service of Deutsche Welle Radio reported on Sunday
that Mykola Tomenko had sent a formal request to the Accounting
Chamber of Ukraine, in which he asked to find the sources that funded
printing of the greeting cards.
In an interview with Deutsche Welle Mr. Tomenko said that the circulation
of the New Year greeting card that bears a personal signature of President
Leonid Kuchma may total 17 million items. Therefore, the parliamentary
deputy wants the Accounting Chamber to inspect the lawfulness and the
source(s) that funded printing and postal distribution of the greeting cards
so that the useless article of budget expenditures would be cancelled in the
future.
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Greeting on the New Year Holidays!
(Click on image to enlarge it)
I wholeheartedly greet You and Your Family
with New year 2003
and Holy Christmas.
Wishing you good health,
big personal happiness
and family agreement.
Wishing you all success in any endeavors,
creative inspiration in your work.
Let well-being and all the good things come to your house.
Let peace, coziness and uplifted holiday mood reign at your home
throughout the whole new year.
Sincerely Yours,
Leonid Kuchma
(Printed Stamp and Postmark: President of Ukraine. Leonid Kuchma. Kyiv 2003)
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http://www.pravda.com.ua/en/archive/2003/january/5/news/1.shtml
Interfax-Ukraine, for personal and academic use only
PRESIDENT DRAWS FIRE FOR HOLIDAY CARDS
By Peter Byrne
Kyiv Post, Kyiv, Ukraine
January 10, 2003
President Leonid Kuchma sent several million Ukrainians holiday greetings this year, wishing them health and prosperity in 2003. While many of those who received the cards said they appreciated receiving them, the president’s political opponents have latched onto the mailing as yet another abuse of power and a waste of government funds.
Kuchma’s card depicts downtown Kyiv, highlighting historical and tourist attractions including the Glory to Ukraine monument on Independence Square, the Pecherska Lavra and St. Sophia Cathedral.
“Let the New Year bring peace and tranquility and holiday cheer,” reads part of message on the back of the card, which bears the president’s signature.
Yuri Zagardony, appointed first deputy head of the Presidential Administration on Dec. 13, said the mass mailing is in keeping with other holiday rituals, which traditionally include state-sponsored gift-giving ceremonies at orphanages and official tree-lighting ceremonies in oblast and regional centers ters throughout the country.
His office could not tell the Post how much the postcard campaign cost.
But Presidential Administration representatives said on Jan. 8 that many of the people who received Kuchma’s cards were grateful, and posted some of the responses on Kuchma’s Web site (www.kuchma.gov.ua).
Hryhory Burkakov, from Shchastya in Donbass oblast, wrote: “The president himself has sent me a postcard wishing me well. I am moved by your heartfelt and sincere holiday greetings!”
Vitaly Popov from Luhansk was moved to send the president a cutting from his vineyard. “Please accept this vine root as a token of my gratitude,” he wrote. “If you are ever in Bilovodsk, please drop by.”
The opposition Sobor party, meanwhile, has offered to hand-deliver negative responses to the New Year’s greeting card.
“Anyone who wishes to reply to Kuchma can simply drop off their message at [Sobor] party headquarters or deliver it to organizers of the Arise, Ukraine! movement,” the party said in a statement on its Web site.
Organizers of Arise, Ukraine!, the movement that staged nationwide protest actions last September, said at a press conference in Kyiv on Jan. 8 that they plan to deliver messages from the president’s critics during the next wave of anti-presidential demonstrations, planned to begin March 9.
At least one deputy wants to know why his government, entering 2003 with a deficit budget, decided to spend so much money on greeting cards.
Mykola Tomenko, an Our Ukraine deputy who chairs the Rada’s Freedom of Speech committee, said he has sent a formal request to the government audit office, the Accounting Chamber, to ask where the money came from to pay for the card campaign.
Tomenko said that government might have mailed as many as 17 million cards.
“Every kopek of state funds spent on the cards could have been used to accomplish other objectives, like raise pensions and the minimum wage, or to reform the healthcare system,” Tomenko told UNIAN on Jan. 8.
Kyiv Post, Kyiv, Ukraine, http://www.kyivpost.com/nation/12901/
For personal and academic use only
UKRAINIANS SEND NEW YEAR'S PRESIDENTIAL POSTCARDS
BACK TO KUCHMA
Source: Deutsche Welle
Published on Ukrayinska Pravda
Kyiv, Ukraine
January 22, 2003
A regional organization of the URP-Sobor party called Halychyna residents to
send presidential New Year's postcards back to the president Kuchma.
Deputy head of the party's regional organisation Vitaliy Ilik told Deutsche
Welle that Lviv residents have begun this to drop the cards off the to local
Sobor's HQs.
We also recommend, he said, that people wrote their wishes and remarks on
these postcards. "Our party representatives will hand-deliver the
responses".
The purpose of the action is to draw once public attention that the money
[for the campaign] came from the budget, Vitaliy Ilik says.
Commenting on the presidential postcards, chief Socialist Oleksandr Moroz,
has reportedly said that the compliments by the head of the state
estimatedly cost Ukraine Hrn 20 million. "It looks like they are trying to
find out how far the president may go. Obviously, all these steps and
gestures: trip to Prague, meeting in Moscow, New Year greetings and all this
sort of congratulations are all connected things, and meant to find out what
is unacceptable for the people," Moroz said.
Ukrayinska Pravda, Kyiv, Ukraine, www.PRAVDA.com.ua
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