In October 2012 Ukraine suddenly kick-started a booming oil products export to Belize. In the first month, Ukraine exported nearly $60 million worth of gasoline to the small Caribbean country. By the end of the last quarter, gasoline exports reached $209 million, according to the State Statistics Service.
Exports to Belize grew even faster this year. In the first five months of 2013 exports of oil products to Belize, an oil-rich nation itself, topped $740 million. And then, out of the blue, the government changed its statistics.
The Ministry for Revenues and Fees released six-month data on July 30 that showed the export of oil products to Belize somehow shrank to $92.7 million. The State Statistics Service followed suit. This means that $648 million worth of gasoline products somehow vanished.
The change in statistics was interpreted by industry experts as a cover-up for vast business activities, possibly shady. Both the ministry and the State Statistics Committee denied wrongdoing, saying the change was of a purely technical nature.
The ministry’s statistics changed just five days after a news report in the Kyiv Post, which pointed out the ballooning trade and suggested that Belize, an offshore haven, was simply used for tax evasion purposes. The Kyiv Post then found that if the January-May state statistics were to be believed, Ukraine consumed and exported 1.6 million tons more gasoline than it produced and imported in total.
An Interfax-Ukraine report as of October 2012 linked all of the Belize gasoline trade to three obscure companies: Zovnitransgaz, Armada-Plus and Petrol-Forwarding. These, in turn, were linked by Dzerkalo Tyzhnya’s sources to Serhiy Kurchenko, a young multi-millionaire who is often believed to be a major member of the “family,” a group of people close to President Viktor Yanukovych. Kurchenko’s company did not answer Kyiv Post requests for comment.
Coincidentally, Oleksandr Klymenko, the minister for fees and revenues, the agency that tweaked the statistics, is also often referred to by political observers as a member of the “family.”
The State Statistics Service, in their explanation accompanying export data, said that their data were “clarified” by the Ministry for Revenues and Fees. Data for about a dozen countries were affected, mostly offshore countries or zones with attractive tax legislation like Cyprus, the Marshall Islands, Malta, Switzerland, Seychelles, and Panama.
The “clarification” affected such categories as fuel, aircraft and ships. In one case, the figures for export of ships to Cyprus decreased by $31 million. But Belize was by far affected the most.
In its response to a Kyiv Post inquiry, the revenues and fees ministry explained that the updated data no longer takes into account re-export of commodities, especially those that passed through customs warehouses. Only straight export of oil products is now accounted for.
The ministry cited a United Nations document called International Merchandise Trade Statistics: Concepts and Definitions 2010 as the reason why re-export data is no longer accounted for in national statistics.
However, the ministry’s interpretation fails to take into account a part of the UN recommendation on re-export. “Re-exports are exports of foreign goods which were previously recorded as imports. It is recommended that re-exports not only be included in total exports but also be separately identified (coded) for analytical purposes,” the UN guidelines say.
Incidentally, Zovnitransgaz, the most active exporter of oil products, as of Aug. 1 owned seven bonded warehouses in Kyiv and other regions, according to the ministry’s register of such warehouses.Their ownership allows the company to conduct customs clearance through a special procedure. Petrol-Forwarding and Armada Plus own warehouses in Odesa and Kirovohrad regions, respectively. Gasoline imported to all these warehouses is exempt from customs duties and excise tax.
Zovnitransgaz was founded in September 2011 by its sole owner and director Oleg Kolosov. The company was registered in Simferopol, Crimea.
The Ministry for Revenues and Fees told Svoboda lawmaker Yuriy Syrotyuk in response to his parliamentary inquiry that in the first four months of this year, 1.259 million tons of oil products passed clearance in warehouses belonging to Zovnitransgaz, Armada-Plus and Petrol-Forwarding. Then, 1.203 million tons of oil products were re-exported from Ukraine, according to the ministry data, and these shipments were free of tax.
Kyiv Post staff writer Kateryna Kapliuk can be reached [email protected].
