OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kiev | Thursday
UKRANIAN authorities have refused to comment on the sale of a pontoon bridge which is at the centre of a major corruption scandal involving the president of the island nation of Madagascar.
Senior Madagascan MP Jean-Eugene Voninahitsy was this week jailed for 11 months after he claimed that President Didier Ratsiraka had lied about the cost of the bridge. The MP, one of the deputy speakers of the national assembly, had challenged Ratsiraka’s claims that Madagascar bought the bridge from the Ukraine government for $400000.
The bridge was acquired to replace one on the Ivoilina river, a few kilometers from the eastern port of Toamisina, that was left unusable by cyclones which swept across the large Indian Ocean island nation earlier this year.
Voninahitsy said early in November that the floating metal bridge, a patched-up one which dates back to World War II according to people who pay to cross it, was a gift from Ukraine.
He added that this was confirmed to him when he led a parliamentary mission to the Ukrainian capital Kiev late in October.
A criminal court in Antananarivo this week found Voninahitsy guilty of insulting the head of state, putting out false information and issuing bad cheques.
Officially, the Ukranian government has refused to release any information on the disposal of the bridge to Madagascar.
“I can only say that this matter was arranged at government level,” said a Ukrainian government official on condition of anonymity.
“We do not give out any information about customs matters,” said an official of the economics ministry, Serguei Souyarko.
The foreign and defence ministries also declined to be drawn into the issue, saying they were “not up to date.”
However, the economics ministry has in official reports noted that in the first 10 months of this year Ukraine exported to Madagascar “metallurgical products” worth more than $400000.
A defence ministry source said the bridge at scrap metal prices was worth no more than $10000. – AFP
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