Posted on 08/19/2005 2:58:42 PM PDT by jb6
Recently the governmental auto park has been renewed and enlarged. Cars for ministers were bought in 2005.
"In none of a county ministers and governors drive bicycles," explained this fact Timoshenko.
The principle of vehicles’ distribution in Cabinet is the following: according to the special edict each ministry has a fixed number of cars. At the same time the edict does not specify a car model – "Cadillac" or "Tavria" if you like.
Ministry of Finance has the biggest number of cars – 27, Ministry of Culture has the smallest – only five.
High officials of Cabinet and ministries drive rather modest cars – "Daewoo", "Opel" and "Skoda".
Ministers, as a rule, drive "Mercedes". Roman Bezsmertny, Vice PM on Administrative Reform, has, perhaps, the most modest "Mercedes" – 600 E class – but it is not new (seven or eight years).
Roman Zvarich, Minister of Justice, has "Mercedes" E600 of black colour; Alexander Baranivsky, Minister of Agricultural Policy, has "Mercedes" S class of dark-blue colour. Yuri Pavlenko, Minister of Youth, has, perhaps, the most stylish car – new "Mercedes" of silver colour.
According to experts’ estimate, total value of governmental cars makes about 120 million UAH.
Governors are very lucky this year – the government allotted them two "Volkswagen" cars for each official (Touareg, Phaeton or Passat, which are valued at from 38 to 70 thousand USD each).
Members of Parliament are also supposed to have official cars, but most of people’s deputies demonstrate independence and prefer to drive their own cars. At the same time deputies (who abandoned official cars in order to save state budget) are very shy of their generous act and refuse to name the model and value of the personal car. But not everyone acts like this. Nestor Shufrich, for example, drives his personal black jeep "Mercedes" of G class, which costs from 100 thousand USD.
Yulia Timoshenko trusts "Mercedes" also. She prefers cars of S class. According to unofficial data, she has three governmental car of this model (all of them are G600 of 1996). There is also BMW 540, but Timoshenko has never caught press’s eye in this car.
Victor Yushchenko President of Ukraine is indifferent to BMW, unlike his son. Before presidential elections Yushchenko was seen in different cars – a dark "Audi", "Toyota Land Cruiser" and some "Mercedes" (black and dark-blue). Having taken the president’s chair, Yushchenko gave preference to "Mercedes". In inauguration day Yushchenko took the dark-grey "Mercedes" E600. Such car costs minimum 150 thousand euros.
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