You're reading: Ukraine opposition demands Yanukovych, Azarov be punished for alleged fraud

A parliamentary opposition leader has accused Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, and head of the state agency for investment Vladyslav Kaskiv of fraud that may cost Ukraine "the loss of the territory of whole regions." 

“The opposition will demand punishment for criminals who are in authority,” a statement from the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc-Batkivschyna (BYT-Batkivschyna) party quoted the party’s parliamentary leader, Serhiy Sobolev, as saying.

Sobolev was commenting on a reported contract between the State Agency for Investment and Management of National Projects and Spanish company Gas Natural Fenosa to build a liquefied natural gas terminal in Odessa.

The deal, signed on Monday, may inflict “billions of losses and the loss of the territory of whole regions” on Ukraine, Sobolev said. “The fraud with the so-called Kaskiv-Azarov-Yanukovych contract with nonexistent persons in the global company needs careful investigation to find out how much Azarov, Yanukovych and Kaskiv received personally out of this deal.

Sobolev said the agreement would be the subject for the new parliament’s first inquiry.

The contract’s Spanish signatory was Jordi Sarda Bonvehi, who had earlier been said to act on behalf of Venezuelan company Enegas. The latter had expressed a desire to invest in the terminal construction project.

However, Gas Natural Fenosa and Enegas denied they had signed any deals with the Ukrainian government. Each denied that Sarda Bonvehi represented it. The two companies said they were not considering joining the consortium that would run the project.

The project manager, Vitaliy Demianiuk, explained that Sarda Bonvehi is a professional commercial agent who acts on behalf of many Spanish companies.

Demianiuk played down the potential effect of misunderstandings over the deal on the project.