President takes part in a sitting of the collegiums of the General Prosecutor's Office

President Victor Yushchenko took part in a sitting of the collegiums of the General Prosecutor's Office. The participants of the meeting that was held in accordance with President's instruction of June 4 were Prosecutor General Oleksandr Medvedko, Security Service Head Valentyn Nalyvaychenko, State Border Guards Head Mykola Lytvyn, State Customs Service Head Anatoly Makarenko, acting Chairman of the National Bank Anatoliy Shapoval, deputy Chairman of the State Committee for Financial Monitoring Yaroslav Yanushevych, Agrarian Policy Minister Yuriy Melnyk, heads of regional offices of the Security Service and Prosecutor Offices, Chief of Staff Vira Ulyanchenko, Deputy Chief of Staff Marina Stavniychuk.

At the meeting sides have discussed observation of customs legislation and fighting smuggling, observation of legislation in banking sector and fighting money laundering, etc.

Speaking about the violations of customs rules, to which General Prosecutor's Office should react more effectively, President Yushchenko gave the example when State Reserve Committee paid 1.5 billion of budget funds for the imported pork, beef and chicken, which were put for sale rather than used for state reserves as the legislation demands it. In addition to that 90% of the beef and 25% of the chicken meat was.

The President also noted that the practice of understatement of customs value of goods imported to Ukraine continues and sometimes reaches the point of absurdity. For example, almost 48 thousand metal doors were brought in and cleared by the declared price of 1 dollar per piece through the Kryvbas checkpoint of Kryvyi Rih Customs Office. "It is nonsense that State Customs Service proposes to award the Head of this Customs Office with "Honorary Economist of Ukraine", said the President.

According to him the cases when ordinary customs inspectors receive 300 thousand to 1.7 million dollars in bribes are numerous.

Proceeding to the subject observation of legislation in banking sector President Yushchenko named such problems as giving loans to legal entities and the population and rapid growth of credit debt (exceeds 36 billion hryvnyas as on 01.06.09).

He also pointed to the critical decline in solvency of many banks and delays in payments. In Victor Yushchenko's opinion this situation together with the amount of unreturned VAT and taxes collected in advance can lead to crisis in the economy. "There are violations of law in each of these fields. Why is VAT being paid back only to members of one political party? Why were the taxes collected in advance?" said the President.

He also added that there are still cases when bank's clients are unable to get their money back despite the fact that there are no objective causes for that and the banking system can work as a clock.