The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on December 27 plans to approve the updated financial plan of JSC Turboatom (Kharkiv) for 2019 with a net profit of UAH 827.68 million, which is 8.3% more than in 2018, according to the documents available to the Interfax-Ukraine agency. According to them, one of the goals of making corrections to the financial plan is to pay UAH 993.63 million to the state this year, including UAH 517.43 million as dividends for 2018.
Other indicators of the updated draft financial plan are not yet available to the agency.
Last year, the Cabinet of Ministers approved Turboatom’s financial plan for 2019 with a net profit of UAH 798.33 million and a revenue of UAH 2.737 billion.
In 2018, the company increased its net profit by 7.6%, to UAH 764.24 million, and its net income grew by 10%, to UAH 2.615 billion.
The shareholders of Turboatom at a meeting on April 17 decided to send 50% of net profit for payment of dividends for 2018, in particular UAH 382.1 million, including UAH 287.5 million to the state (as the owner of more than 75%). The Cabinet of Ministers then increased the norm of dividend payment to 90%. The director of the enterprise, Viktor Subotin, and Kharkiv Regional Council opposed the decision, however, the Ministry of Finance repeatedly insisted on the payment of increased dividends.
The State Aviation Service of Ukraine has permitted Bravo airlines to service charter flights from five Ukrainian cities to Egypt. According to an order posted on the authority’s website, Bravo Airlines LLC can fly from Kyiv to Hurghada, from Vinnytsia, Kyiv, Kryvy Rih, Rivne and Kherson to Sharm el-Sheikh.
In addition, the regulator granted PJSC International Joint-Stock Aviation Company Urga the right to operate flights to Africa – Burkina Faso (Ouagadougou), Chad (N’Djamena), Cameroon (Douala, Yaounde), Gabon (Libreville, Port-Gentil), Mali (Bamako, Gao, Snvaré, Tesalit, Tombouctou), Mauritania (Nouakchott), Niger (Niamey), Cote d’Ivoire (Abidjan, Yamoussoukro) and Senegal (Jof and Diass).
In addition, the State Aviation Service granted Jonica Airlines LLC the right to operate flights to Greece (Athens), Italy (Verona, Milan, Venice, Rome, Turin, Bologna, Parma), Moldova (Chisinau), Austria (Vienna), Iraq (Erbil), Republic of the Congo (Weso) and Cyprus (Larnaca).
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has signed an Election Code. “On December 27, 2019, [the document] returned with the president’s s signature,” reads a report on the parliament’s website.
Prior to this, Verkhovna Rada Chairman Dmytro Razumkov signed the document and submitted it to the president.
On December 19, Rada accepted all 17 proposals of Zelensky to the Election Code. A total of 330 MPs voted for respective decree No. 0978 in the second reading at its meeting on Thursday.
Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine (GTSOU), which replaced Ukrtransgaz as the operator of the Ukrainian gas transmission system on January 1, 2020, has reported continuation of Russian gas transit under the new agreement reached between Russia’s Gazprom and NJSC Naftogaz Ukrainy in furtherance of the previous ten-year contract.
“We have transported the first cubic meters of gas to the EU under the new gas contract consistent with European regulations. The gas transmission system is operating normally,” the operator said in a statement on Facebook on Wednesday.
Ukrainian banks have started posting the results of their stress tests conducted by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) on their websites. So, the state-owned PrivatBank and Ukrgasbank, as well as UkrSibbank, OTP Bank, Credit Agricole Bank, ProCredit Bank and Kredobank did not need additional capital according to the results of stress tests.
The estimated capital shortage of state-owned Oschadbank under the baseline scenario was UAH 13.49 billion, under the adverse macroeconomic scenario – UAH 28.25 billion, and by September 1, thanks to the measures taken, the bank had reduced it to UAH 6.19 billion and to UAH 21.14 billion, respectively.
The need in capital of state-owned Ukreximbank under the baseline amounted to UAH 9.776 billion, under the adverse macroeconomic scenario – UAH 17.53 billion; by September 1, the bank had decreased the figures to UAH 3.671 billion and to UAH 12.188 billion, respectively.
The estimated capital shortage of the subsidiary of the Russian Sberbank under the baseline scenario was UAH 1.44 billion, under the adverse scenario – UAH 4.759 billion. By September 1, as a result of the measures taken, the financial institution had no need for additional capital.
Parliamentary immunity has stopped being in effect from January 1, 2020.
As reported, On September 3, the Verkhovna Rada voted to adopt on its merits bill No. 7203 amending Article 80 of the Constitution of Ukraine which fully abolishes parliamentary immunity from 2020.
The law removes from Article 80 of the Constitution the provision stating that parliamentarians cannot be prosecuted, detained or arrested without the consent of the Verkhovna Rada and that they are guaranteed parliamentary immunity.
Only one provision remained in the article. This states that Ukrainian parliamentarians do not bear legal liability for the voting outcomes or statements made in the parliament or its bodies, with the exception of liability for slander or defamation.
At the end of 2019, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed bill No. 2237 into law, bringing the Ukrainian legislation regarding the immunity of deputies into line with the Constitution of Ukraine.
According to the adopted amendments, the application for permission to detain, select the measure of restraint (detention in custody, house arrest), and other investigative search actions must be agreed with the prosecutor general.
Investigators of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the central office of the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) are entitled to conduct pretrial investigation of criminal proceedings opened against MPs. It is forbidden to entrust the execution of a pretrial investigation of a criminal offense committed by an MP of Ukraine to other bodies of pretrial investigation, except for the NABU and the central office of the SBI in accordance with their investigative jurisdiction.
