Prosecutor General's Office makes documents on Referendum '96 account available to Control Chamber

1996-10-03 17:10

Minsk, 3 October. Only after a resolute intervention of the Prosecutor General's Office, the Control Chamber managed to start studying documents concerning a so-called Referendum '96 account. This was announced by Viktar Hanchar, chairman of the central election commission, at an October 3 emergency news conference. It will be recalled that at the commission's request, Control Chamber inspectors attempted to start verification of the lawfulness of the accumulation of voluntary donations for the organization of a national referendum a few days before. However the Ministry of Finance then denied access to them under various pretexts. The Prosecutor's Office had to withdraw all the required documents to present them to the Control Chamber for study.
Moreover, for failing to meet the schedule that was adopted by the central election commission for transfers of public funds for the organization of parliamentary by-elections, the Prosecutor General's Office has taken Finance Minister Pavel Dzik to court. This followed an official warning to the minister about the inadmissibility of disregard for legislation after he had failed to order the transfer of 4 billion rubels for the by-elections before September 1. However after the second installment of election funds, worth eight billion rubels, never appeared on the Central Election Commission's account before October 1, the Prosecutor's Office had to appeal to court. In the finance minister's action, Mr. Hanchar sees signs of a criminal offense punishable under Article 166 of the Criminal Code, which penalizes authorities' inaction.
Having found the financing of the by-elections at a deadlock, the central election commission placed a report by Minister Dzik on the agenda of its October 9 session. On the results of this report, the commission will decided on a need for an official request for instituting criminal proceedings against Mr. Dzik.