Panama Papers: Ukraine populist seeks president's ouster

KIEV: A populist Ukrainian party leader said Monday he would launch impeachment proceedings against President Petro Poroshenko over his use of offshore accounts revealed by the "Panama Papers" leak.
The action by Radical Party leader Oleg Lyashko is unlikely to succeed but is certain to add even further pressure on Poroshenko as he struggles to resolve a months-long political crisis that has paralysed the cash-strapped government.
A year-long worldwide media investigation into a trove of 11.5 million documents found that the former Soviet state's pro-Western leader had registered a company in the British Virgin Islands that he never disclosed in his income forms.
Poroshenko was travelling to Japan on Monday and issued no immediate comment on documents originally leaked to a German newspaper from Panama's Mossack Fonseca law firm.
The president's spokesman did not answer the telephone when contacted by AFP.
None of the three accounts associated with Poroshenko's offshore firm held more than €2,000 (RM8,871.18).
But the report said they may have been a haven used by the president to avoid paying taxes on his profitable candy empire.
"Poroshenko was busy setting up an offshore tax haven for his business assets as Ukraine was suffering its worst defeat in Russia's war against Ukraine in the summer of 2014," the report said.
"Poroshenko's action might be illegal on two counts: he started a new company while president and he did not report the company on his disclosure statements," it added.
Radical Party leader Lyashko — an outspoken populist who holds 21 of the 450 seats in Ukraine's parliament — said he has "initiated the start of impeachment proceedings" against the president.
"We demand the creation of a special temporary investigative committee in parliament that would probe (Poroshenko's) secret offshore companies and accounts," Lyashko wrote on Facebook.
Lyashko's efforts are unlikely to get very far because Ukraine still lacks a law spelling out how such impeachment hearings may proceed. They could also only begin after the case is studied by the country's constitutional and supreme courts.
Ukraine's prosecutor general's office said it had studied the leaked information and "found no evidence of a crime".
But the accounts' very existence is likely to reflect poorly on Poroshenko's self-proclaimed efforts to erase Ukraine's long history of government graft.
Ukraine's 2014 pro-EU revolution was fed in part by deep-rooted frustration with the Russian-backed leadership's alleged use of state funds for self-enrichment and its brazen disregard for the rule of law.
Chocolate link
According to the Panama Papers, Poroshenko's financial advisers said the accounts were created to help with the president's sale of his Roshen chocolate business — an asset he had vowed to get rid of when elected in May 2014.
One of Poroshenko's financial assistants said a transaction made in the British Virgin Islands would help "improve attractiveness of the Roshen group" given the difficult business climate in war-torn Ukraine.
Poroshenko has been dubbed the "chocolate king" for making a fortune through his Roshen empire. The Panama Papers report estimated the president's wealth at US$858 million (RM3.34 billion ).
But the Kiev office of the Transparency International anti-corruption organisation accused Poroshenko of breaking Ukraine's basic law.
"His creation of businesses while serving as president is a direct violation of the constitution," Transparency International Ukraine said in a statement.
It further accused 50-year-old leader "of breaking anti-corruption standards". — AFP