Head of the Zakarpattya Regional State Administration Gennadiy Moskal sent an official appeal to the Prime Minister Vladimir Groysman asking to initiate his dismissal by President Petro Poroshenko because of the "protection" of smuggling by VIP-politicians. The statement posted on Moskal website says about that.
"I do not see the point of my work on the post of the head of the Zakarpattya Regional Administration, therefore, I ask you to exercise your constitutional right provided by Article 118 of the Constitution of Ukraine and submit the appeal to the President of Ukraine on my dismissal from the post," – said the statement.
According to G. Moskal, after the armed conflict in Mukachevo in the summer of 2015 with the redistribution of flows of smuggling cigarettes from Ukraine to the EU, changes in the field of personnel took place and the situation stabilized. "Systemic smuggling of tobacco products to Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Great Britain and a well-tuned chain of illegal shipments of cigarettes by truck transport were broken. However, international criminal groups ... are trying to resume systemic smuggling of tobacco products by using the influence of Ukrainian politicians and leaders of individual departments,"- says Moskal.
According to him, today there are about 200 trucks in Kiev and Kiev region that are loaded with cigarettes produced in Belarus, Moldova, the Russian Federation and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the occupied territories of Donetsk region and Crimea which were imported to Ukraine due to corruption schemes. "It is necessary to replace the Chief of Zakarpattya customs by the "right candidate" who will follow a certain scheme, so that trucks with cigarettes get to the EU," - said the head of the regional administration.
Moskal said that now in Zakarpattya there is a repetition of the situation that led to the bloody events on July 11th, 2015 in Mukachevo.
"And I can not be a bystander. It is impossible to overcome smuggling in a certain region when the central structures don’t help, but on the contrary try to restore the shadow scheme. The state has lost control over the situation with the illegal extraction of amber, illicit trafficking of drugs, firearms, crime and other negative processes in the society," - he stressed.
"Zakarpattya is given at the mercy of smugglers and they turned on the green light for illegal movement of cigarettes across the state border. When fight with smuggling began, I was warned about such development of events. Unfortunately, these warnings are coming true," - concluded Moskal.