The Cabinet of Ministers fired Roman Nasirov, State Fiscal Service head, who was suspended from his post in March due to suspicion of embezzlement, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said during a cabinet meeting on Jan. 31.
Nasirov was arrested by National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine on March 2 as a suspect in suspending taxes for gas trading companies of lawmaker Oleksandr Onyshchenko, who fled Ukraine in 2016.
Although the activists of the Anti-Corruption Action Center have been pushing the government to dismiss Nasirov for a long time and even filed the lawsuit against the government with the demand to fire Nasirov in December, the Cabinet dismissed him only 11 months after his arrest.
“It was odd to discover about me being fired from my post from media,” Nasirov wrote on Facebook on Jan. 31.
“I consider the cabinet’s decision to fire me, as well as my suspension last year, unfair and illegal.”
Nasirov has become the highest official, successfully targeted by NABU, within a year after its creation.
However, Nasirov could have fled Ukraine, after 72 hours of arrest, as Bloc of Petro Poroshenko lawmaker Mustafa Nayyem published an evidence of Nasirov’s British citizenship on March 7.
Only after a protest rally, organized by anti-corruption watchdogs, Solomyansky District Court of Kyiv ordered to prolong Nasirov’s arrest for another two months and set a Hr100 million ($3.7 million) bail, early on March 7.
However, on March 16 Nasirov’s family paid the bail, and the suspended fiscal service head was released from pre-trial detention.
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Nasirov said the cabinet hasn’t notified him about his dismissal, hasn’t demanded any explanations from him.
“I would have much to say on my defense and about my achievements on the State’s Fiscal Service head post,” Nasirov said.
Nasirov claimed first thing he was going to do after being fired by the cabinet – prove his innocence in the embezzlement accusations, and after that prove his dismissal was groundless.
However, the cabinet had a sufficient reason – Ukraine’s law forbids civil servants to have dual citizenship, Finance Minister Oleksandr Daneliyuk told reporters on Jan. 17.
“This is a violation of the law on civil service. I would initiate the formal petition to dismiss him,” Daneliyuk said.
Nasirov denied having dual citizenship, said the “fact that he has the U.K passport is not confirmed”.
After Daneliyuk filed a petition to the cabinet, Groysman sent it to the National Civil Service Agency on Jan. 25 “for a check”. Only after the cabinet got the confirmation, it was decided to fire Nasirov.
It’s been 11 months since Nasirov’s case is being considered by the court.
