Belarusbank settles down to collection of voluntary donations for referendum

1996-10-03 14:10

Minsk, 3 October. Viktar Hanchar, chairman of the central election commission, held a special conference on October 3 to comment on an extraordinary fact established in the collection of voluntary donations for the organization of a national referendum. He said that the day before he had been informed of the appearance of announcements in all offices of Belarusbank that the bank had started to accumulate voluntary donations from legal entities and private persons in support of a national referendum on an account intended for the central election commission. Thus, Mr. Hanchar concluded, apart from the Ministry of Finance, the financing of the national referendum scheduled for November 24 appears to be carried out by Belarusbank. Mr. Hanchar stressed that the central election commission bore no relation to the collection of voluntary donations. A check on 15 offices established that it had been a personal "patriotic initiative of the bank's chairperson," Nadzeya Yermakova. Mr. Hanchar also said that some funds had already transferred to the account belonging to the commission. Some 50 million rubels had been contributed by a company called Dalamit and 10 million by an Asipovichy-based oil product supply company. These donations were made in accordance with the Referendum Law, Mr. Hanchar said.
He found it difficult to answer the question as to how these funds will be used. It is likely that at its October 9 session the central election commission will decide not to use these 60 million at all. Mr. Hanchar said, "In view of the present situation, the central election commission flatly opposes the use any other resources but budget ones for the organization of the referendum." He pointed out that the central election commission considered Belarusbank's action obviously provocative. As he supposed, those who are campaigning for holding the referendum on November 7 have started to be aware that these arrangements are impossible without the central election commission's participation, and this is the reason for the accumulation of donations in the commission's legal account. However, according to Mr. Hanchar, this supposition is at variance with the recent statement of the Main Office of Public and Political Information at the Presidential Administration which continues insisting on the legality of the Referendum '96 account on which the Ministry of Finance accumulate public donations.
Formally, under Article 9 of the Referendum Law, the use of voluntary donations made by organizations and private persons is possible. However, it is conditioned by the "presence of a concerted will of all parties concerned and the presence of a well-adjusted mechanism for the use of these funds." In the opinion of Mr. Hanchar, "this is becoming inexpedient as the situation related to the use of the so-called voluntary donations is assuming a purely criminal nature."