A minister caught a goldfish and said, “I want you to fulfill only one wish: I wish that I had everything!” The goldfish said, “OK, you had everything…”

Sooner or later, Agrarian Policy Minister Oleksandr Baranivsky will have to part with everything, but not until he leaves office. In addition to fruit, vegetables and meat, he lately has become very concerned about fish.

The liquidation of the State Department for Fishing Industry signaled the onset of the redistribution of the national fish market, in which the last remaining state property is doomed to privatization.

Poached fish is sold illegally in such quantities that lawful fishing has simply become unprofitable. The Derzhrybhosp [State Department for Fishing Industry] addressed this problem in December 2005 when it inspected the Office of State Fishing Inspection. Derzhrybhosp uncovered numerous cases of corruption among rank-and-file inspectors and their superiors. But instead of punishing the bribe-takers, the department sacked the truth-seekers…

Fish processing companies can buy raw fish either from fishing cooperatives or from poachers. The latter sell bullhead fish three times lower, so preference is naturally given to them. It takes the enterprising “managers” three days to get a 200-ton batch ready. Freezing the fish is done at an addition cost, but half of that sum is saved all the same!

The wholesale conveyor works like a clock, judging from the number of fishing boats queuing up at ports… There is no time to waste: the bullhead season only lasts two months.

Why are poachers so free to work? What are the fishing inspectors doing? The answer is simple; poachers give them one-third of every catch. There are special groups of “duty collectors.”

During Soviet times, poachers paid fishing inspectors, but never in kind. Now, this additional fish gets to the market, swaying it like in a heavy storm, because the quantity amounts to tens of thousands of tons. Fishing inspectors control small boats and powerful vessels with 46-ton holds. During the season they are even on board; they see that the fishermen do not understate the catch.

This criminal linkage yielded profit before Viktor Kyrychenko was appointed Chief of the State Fishing Inspection Office, and yields even higher profit now. Since Kyrychenko took office one year ago, he has never tried to break this linkage. His staff has grown by 1,500, but only 30 are fishing inspectors. A question arises: Was it for improvement of the department that the Agrarian Policy Minister promoted his friend to the post of Chief Fishing Inspector?

But before Baranivsky put Kyrychenko in that chair, he issued an order on February 21, 2005 to re-subordinate the State Fishing Inspection Office to his ministry (i.e. to himself). Baranivsky deliberately reorganized regional fishing inspection departments into basin departments; now he no longer must consult governors when appointing department chiefs.

Unlike Viktor Kyrychenko, Oleksandr Kachniy was nobody’s protege. He owes his promotion only to the Orange Revolution and his active membership in the Socialist Party. A graduate of the Personnel Management Academy with ten years’ experience in managing private fishing companies, Kachniy was full of hope for improvements in this field. In March 2005, after four interviews with the minister, Kachniy was appointed Derzhrybhosp’s Head.

Clouds began to gather in September, when Kachniy received a delegation from fishing cooperatives who sought protection from … fishing inspectors. They complained that they paid all of their taxes and salaries, repaired their boats, seeded fishing areas, and maintained public utilities in their localities, but they could not compete with the poachers. Poachers actually left them jobless…

At a December meeting between the Derzhrybhosp fishermen and heads of local fishing inspection departments, the fishermen were very indignant and accused the chiefs of the Black Sea and the Azov basin departments of incompetence.

These departments are the biggest and most powerful of twelve. Their directors made fast careers. Oleg Ushakov, head of the Black Sea department, had worked at a sanatorium in Yevpatoria, Crimea. Taras Gorobets, head of the Azov Department, was … the son of the chief manager of Oleksandr Baranivsky’s logistic support service. It was while Gorobets headed the Azov department that the Zaporizhia region prosecutor’s office instituted criminal proceedings on charges of gross embezzlement there.

Here is just one of the documented facts showing how poorly fish inspections work; all of their seven ships have stayed docked for twelve months, just because they ironically did not pass their inspections. Why should they? Why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? Courageous inspectors, who dared to block poachers by anchoring ships in the Kerch Strait, were fired immediately.

The Derzhrybhosp requested law enforcement and the Agrarian Policy Minister to take action against corrupt inspectors. Baranivsky reacted right away; he held large discussions, inviting the directors of fishermens’ associations and ports, fishing inspectors, and captains. His emphatic speech boiled down to the following: Inspectors like Alexei Treskov and Kirill Stremousov (who had told TV reporters about corruption schemes within the State Fishing Inspection Department) discredited the service: “They smear honest names. There’s no place for them in the fishing inspection!”

The next day Kyrychenko ordered Treskov’s and Stremousov’s activities investigated. On December 27, Treskov, Chief Inspector of the Crimean Division of the Azov Department, was suspended. In April, he was sacked for … an “eight-week absence from work”! Stremousov got his lump of blame as well.

Oleksandr Kachniy created a lot of problems for himself when he sent a letter of complaint to the Cabinet of Ministers. He asked the central government to allow him to work in his capacity. He explained that comprehensive examinations by the Interior Ministry, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Control and Revision Department, and the State Public Service Committee established no facts of corruption within the Derzhrybhosp. At the same time, there was plenty of documented evidence of corruption and other offenses within fishing inspection departments that were subordinated directly to Oleksandr Baranivsky.

Seeing no legitimate way or formal pretext to get rid of Kachniy, Baranivsky simply … liquidated the Derzhrybhosp. In exchange for the Cabinet’s consent, he even sacrificed the fishing ports, ceding them to the Transport Ministry. Meeting with the President and the Prime Minister, Baranivsky put all the blame on Kachniy, who “organized a system of total corruption in fishing inspection bodies.” As Baranivsky explained, Kachniy had something to do with fish imports and that was why he wanted “to ruin the national fishing industry.”

Baranivsky shook papers before TV cameras and claimed that the documents proved Kachniy’s guilt. “This department is corrupt through and through. Its senior officials cover up the machinations of companies that import fish products to Ukraine. They are not interested in domestic production. Oleksandr Kachniy, who heads this department, runs more than 15 private structures that import fish to Ukraine. His brother is in the business, too. My ministry can not serve as a cover for private business.”

Kachniy sued Baranivsky for slander, but the defendant missed three court sessions in a row. He must have been afraid of the exorbitant sum he would have to pay for moral damage and the staining of someone’s reputation. But the plaintiff’s only demand was an official statement of apology for groundless accusations of corruption.

On December 2, 2005 the Derzhrybhosp licensing commission distributed catch quotas for 2006 among the fishing cooperatives of the Dnister-Danube basin. There were 77 applications. Fifty-two cooperatives got permission to fish in the basin. Twenty-five were denied the quota. Interestingly, four of them were turned down because they “did not meet the application deadline - September 1.” But one of the lucky 52 was Dana-Yug from the village of Usatovo in the Odessa region. By December 2 that private company had not submitted an application. It did not even have a license (it was registered as a legal entity a week later - on December 9).

Baranivsky pressed hard for including Dana-Yug in the quota list and did not sign the supplementary protocol until it was included. It took six weeks to include the company, and the delay in issuing quotas nearly provoked a strike of fishermen, who said they would block the Kerch Strait. Members of the commission stated in a separate clause: “The Dana-Yug enterprise was granted the quota at a verbal order from Agrarian Policy Minister O. Baranivsky.”

Security Service investigators know more about Dana-Yug. An investigation report has already been submitted to the Head of the SBU.

It may be just a coincidence, but the minister’s son Bogdan runs an agrarian firm named “Agrotechinform.” And its partner-company, Zbruch, was founded by Olexandr Gorobets, the head manager of Oleksandr Baranivsky’s logistical support service. These facts are not enough to accuse the minister of facilitating his son’s business -- fumigation of agricultural products, providing an ample choice of Ukrainian-made and imported mineral fertilizers, and trade in the national and foreign markets…

The only thing the minister could be accused of is insincerity. In late March he sent a lengthy letter to the ZN Editor-in-Chief, in which he called my publications “banal newspaper killing.” “In late summer the Agrarian Policy Ministry organized a trip for 60 Kyiv journalists to the construction site of a new Danish-technology pork factory in the village of Pereyaslavka in the Kyiv region. However, your correspondent was not among the journalists. By the way, the factory was commissioned on December 26. So I would advise you to dispatch journalist V. Chopenko there to get an idea of Danish technologies in pig-breeding, instead of writing nonsense.”

First, the Zerkalo Nedeli is not a ministerial newspaper in business to report on the inauguration of every new pigsty or to sing the praises of the successful insemination of cows at some village farm. Second, I would be immensely grateful to Mr. Baranivsky if he organized a trip to the Balta district of the Odessa region where his brother is constructing a factory using Danish technology…

Additionally, I have questions: Why did the minister liquidate the food and fishing industry departments; Why did he promote his proteges to key positions; Why did he replace the directors of 17 distilleries?

The ghost of privatization is looming over the world-famous Crimean winery Massandra. Of course, it is impossible to privatize this national company “at a gulp.” But there is a “detour.” The dozen enterprises incorporated in Massandra could be registered as legal entities, “proper” men could be placed at the head of them, then they could be privatized one by one… The Massandra vineyards occupy tens of thousands of hectares. Overlooking the Crimean coast, this is a very lucrative piece of land. Why not cut off a strip or two near the coastline and build luxury villas there?

Even Baranivsky’s deputies are indignant. When Viktor Pabat, who headed the fish industry department, approached the Prime Minister with an official notification on the state of affairs in that sector, Baranivsky immediately replaced him.

Pabat’s letter said: “Annual catch dropped from 1,100,000 t in 1990 down to 225,000 t in 2004. This resulted from several factors, primarily the aging and depreciation of the fishing fleet (most of the ships are 20-30 years old). The ocean fleet shrank from 230 vessels in 1990 to 32 in 2006. That notwithstanding, the new management of the Derzhrybhosp (in the person of O. Kachniy) succeeded in using state property more efficiently and strengthening discipline. As a result, the catch volume increased by 21 percent and reached 265,000 t.

‘The ministry deprived the Derzhrybhosp of a number of important competencies and re-subordinated the schools for training fishing industry specialists, as well as two of four research institutions, directly to the ministry.

‘The same issues are involved with fishing inspections, which the minister subordinated to himself. Numerous examinations and audits revealed corruption, involvement in poaching, and other violations of the law. Criminal cases against a number of fishing inspection officials are being investigated.

‘I am deeply concerned over the irrational approaches to the fate of the national fishing industry. All decisions on fragmenting this industry were made without my consent.”

The alarmed minister urgently called a press conference to explain the moves. But how could he explain the fact that Derzhrybhosp never received a kopek of the billions appropriated for the agrarian sector’s development?

Baranivsky did not tell reporters anything new. Neither did Chief Fishing Inspector Viktor Kyrychenko, or Larysa Usachenko, the newly appointed head of the ministry’s fishing industry department. All reporters heard was another shower of mud poured on Alexei Treskov and Kirill Stremousov. The two were also present and gave their own press conference afterwards.

Apart from these and other “ministerial” problems, Baranivsky is at loggerheads with his comrades in the Socialist Party, a fact some observers attribute to his open solidarity with the opposition Party of Regions. But he is also bitterly criticized for his professional nihilism. The Kyiv branch of the Socialist Party even is demanding that Baranivsky be expelled for “discrediting the party in the eyes of the voters.” The SPU Political Council considered the issue at a special session that Baranivsky ignored. But the game is not over yet, not least because Oleksandr Kachniy is a member of the Kyiv Region’s Council of People’s Deputies and the leader of the Socialist faction there.

They say “fish goes bad from the head but is scaled from the opposite end.” This fish should be handled the other way around!