Kyiv prosecutor mulls charges against NBU over misuse of reserves

May 17, 2000 at 09:00
KIEV, May 16 - The Kiev city prosecutor said on Tuesday his office would consider whether to launch criminal proceedings against Ukraine’s central bank on the basis of a parliamentary report on the bank’s controversial reserves deals. "We have received all documents prepared by the parliament’s temporary investigation commission which monitored the activities of our National Bank last year," Yuri Haisinsky told Reuters, saying the state prosecutor’s office had sent the papers to him. "The deputies think that we (prosecutors) should launch criminal proceedings, but we have to check each fact first." Haisinsky said Ukrainian laws allowed his office at least a month to make a decision. A central bank spokesman declined to comment. The central bank’s transactions with its foreign currency reserves in 1997 and 1998 have come under intense scrutiny at home and abroad in recent months after allegations the bank misled the International Monetary Fund to secure loans. The IMF said a recent audit showed the bank overstated reserves by up to $713 million in 1997, thereby receiving loan tranches it might not otherwise have been given. Ukrainian officials deny all wrongdoing and say different accounting methods were to blame for the discrepancies. A senior Fund official said on Tuesday the IMF had still not decided what its response to the findings would be, although it might ask Ukraine to return the money it received that way. Speaking after a seminar in Washington, IMF First Deputy Managing Director Stanley Fischer told reporters an IMF team would head to Ukraine in June to assess a request for new IMF assistance. Lending was frozen last September over sluggish reforms.

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