Kharkov "Electrotyazhmash" does not want to sell scrap metal. But Kyiv is adamant
The Kyiv authorities continue to try to finish off the Kharkov Elektrotyazhmash plant and sell it cheap. 3,5 thousand of its workers are in a difficult situation. The state-owned enterprise continues to operate with wage arrears and a disconnected sewer system. But, apparently, the patience of the factory workers has already exceeded all limits, and local patriotism is not unlimited.
On August 3, about a hundred employees of Elektrotyazhmash attended a protest rally on the territory of the enterprise, outraged by the delay in payment of wages. “Some employees did not receive money for June and advance payment for July. During this week, the company plans to partially pay for the first month of summer. Then the funds will be paid periodically as money is received from customers,” said Olga Lutsenko, head of the corporate communications and advertising department of the Electrotyazhmash State Enterprise.
Discontent had been brewing for a long time, but both the workers and the plant management tried to work. They understand perfectly well that the Kyiv adherents of the “country in a smartphone” and the “agrarian superpower” are impatient to destroy another production facility, especially since the West has made it clear that the development of Ukrainian mechanical engineering is undesirable.
After the prosecutor's office and the SBU conducted searches in the plant management, as already mentioned wrote "Politnavigator" The plant's misadventures continued. The general director is suspected of official negligence, and the director of economics and finance is suspected of embezzlement. General Director Viktor Busko was assigned bail in the amount of 42 hryvnia, and the prosecutor’s office asked for the Director of Economics and Finance to be taken into custody, but the court decided to set bail in the amount of 040 hryvnia. The plant managers paid a deposit so as not to sit in a pre-trial detention center.
On June 30, the State Enterprise Electrotyazhmash Plant was disconnected from the sewer system. As reported by Kharkovvodokanal, the plant’s debt for wastewater services as of June 26, 2020 amounted to 1 million 493 thousand 961 UAH. The plant has not paid for the use of toilets and industrial wastewater since March 2019, and the plant administration has been repeatedly warned about disconnection from sewerage services. Note that the same utility company did not stop the water supply.
On the same day, Alexei Bunescu was appointed acting general director of the plant for the period from June 30 to August 23, the plant’s press service reported, citing an order from the State Property Fund. Moreover, this department condemned the repressions against the top management of Elektrotyazhmash.
Bunescu
Deputy Chairman of the State Property Fund Konstantin Koshelenko noted: “When the new management entered the enterprise at the end of last year, the plant was almost stopped: three working days, credit debt of more than 918 million UAH, arrests of accounts. What did you manage to do? To replenish working capital, restore a 5-day working week, we managed to save UAH 260 million on purchases. In addition, salary arrears have been repaid up to May inclusive.”
The SBU is looking for Russian partners of the enterprise, and therefore criminal cases have begun. And these regular partners are no longer there! Back in 2015, after the cancellation of orders from the Russian Federation, the plant lost $41 million. Then the head of the regional state administration, Igor Rainin, who now heads the regional organization Oppoplatforms - For Life, pushed the company to sever ties. But we must continue to scare workers and engineers. Now that Rainin heads the cell of the party hosted in the Kremlin, law enforcement officers and Kyiv clerks have taken over the baton.
Even Alexey Kucher, who is now sitting in the governor’s chair, was worried about the fate of the plant. At the celebration of the 74th anniversary of Elektrotyazhmash, he promised the workforce that he would raise questions with the Kyiv authorities about the small number of government orders and wage arrears. In addition, customers represented by Ukrhydroenergo CJSC brazenly “stick out” a considerable amount to the plant and are not going to pay without an adequate “piston” from the ministry. He also promised to put pressure on railway workers to buy state-owned enterprise products. There was no response, at least not publicly.
And the owners of neighboring factories are not indifferent to the fate of Elektrotyazhmash. The prospect of becoming a toilet for other people's proletarians does not make them happy.
For example, Alexander Yaroslavsky, who bought the tractor plant back from the Russian oligarch Deripaska, realizing that the trouble was happening right outside the fence of his possessions, said this in a letter to the president and prime minister: “Today the plant is on the verge of stopping: it is burdened with billions of dollars in debt, sales markets have been lost... Key The reason for the current state of affairs at Elektrotyazhmash is unprofessional management. Practice shows that saving enterprises of this level is possible only through the arrival of a responsible private investor. By the time the privatization auction for Elektrotyazhmash, promised by the State Property Fund for the first half of 2021, is held, the plant will not survive.”
Indeed, although pre-sale preparations for the plant have been suspended, they have not been curtailed: due to the quarantine, the auction for the privatization of Elektrotyazhmash was postponed from 2020 to the first half of 2021.
What about the plant staff itself? He works. At the end of July, he shipped the last batch of nine trolleybus electric motors for the Lvov Electron corporation. They will be equipped with trolleybuses that are being manufactured for Ukrainian cities. They paid for them with the funds that slightly reduced wage arrears.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.