Despite Deputy Prime Minister's upbeat presentation to Parliament on energy sector, critics respond that energy budget payments remain at critically low levels

e presentation depicting cash flows and fuel supplies to prove that the government can heat Ukraine this winter.

But the embattled deputy prime minister's critics were on the attack even before she had finished her presentation.

According to Tymoshenko, in preparation for winter the government has stored even more coal, gas and nuclear fuel rods than in previous years.

As Tymoshenko talked, the State Tax Administration (STA) released a lengthy news brief stating that payments to the budget for energy had not increased significantly this year and that payment rates remained at critically low levels.

However, two of Tymoshenko's most vociferous critics, Oleksandr Volkov (Revival of the Regions) and Hryhory Surkis (Social Democratic Party (United)), were conspicuously absent during her 25-minute presentation, during which she said that the Cabinet's new energy policies had decreased barter deals for fuel, thus enabling the government to pay wage arrears during the first nine months of this year.

Throughout her presentation, Tymoshenko emphasized what she referred to as "positive systemic change," which would eventually eliminate some of the problems that have dogged Ukraine's energy sector for years.

But of course, not everyone was impressed.

Addressing a meeting on coordinating government's unsuccessful efforts to fight corruption on Oct. 9, President  Leonid Kuchma reiterated the view that Ukraine's energy sector remains strained, criminalized and politicized.

And on Oct. 10, Kuchma yet again instructed Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko to categorically prohibit the unauthorized siphoning of gas belonging to Russia's Gazprom.

Kuchma's latest instruction came just hours before state-controlled television [UT-3] announced that Gazprom's partner Itera, a corporation that imports about 40 percent of natural gas into Ukraine, had suspended all gas supplies to the country.

"The heating season will not begin on time in all the towns and villages of Ukraine. The majority of the heating organizations have not purchased fuel yet," it was announced on the channel.

Rebutting Tymoshenko, Communist deputy Oleh Panasovsky, who co-chairs the Rada's fuel and energy committee, said the collapse of the energy sector was "imminent," citing low coal supplies and the power stations' penchant to produce energy by burning expensive natural gas.

"Winter will come as a surprise to the government," he warned, calling on the executive branch to re-establish market links between domestic energy sector companies - and avoid involving foreign firms and capital.

However, the deputies couldn't muster enough votes to pass a resolution branding the government's winter preparations "insufficient." But they did threaten to vote again on the issue on Oct. 19.