15-06-2007“We live and advance forward in spite of everything” |
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As “Ilyichevets” newspaper has already informed, participants of the press tour, within the framework of “Ukraine seen by editors” action paid a visit to Ilyich Iron & Steel Works. More than 30 journalists, representing nearly all regions of Ukraine took part in the action. Last Saturday they met Vladimir Boyko, the Chairman of the Board of PJSC Ilyich Iron & Steel Works, an MP, and Hero of Ukraine. Serguey Matvienkov, deputy of Ukrainian Parliament also participated.
Being aware of the fact that the journalists have already visited many industrial and social objects of the enterprise Vladimir Boyko noted at the beginning of the press conference: You will not be able to see what Ilyich Iron & Steel Works own in all its branches within a month. The geographical scope of the enterprise is really immense, the works has its branches in Uman, Cherkassy region, we have a big agricultural shop in Zhytomyr region and some in the Crimea. Such structural branch as Ilyich insurance company operates in Kiev, Kharkov and Simferopol.
I have to say that much lies are written about me. For example, they call me a billionaire. In fact, I owe only 0.118% of the value of the stock. All Ilyich Iron & Steel Works workers are really rich. However collective ownership of Ilyich Iron & Steel Works is the subject of envy. Lately there have been some steps aimed to undermine our enterprise, including those, done by raiders. Still we live and advance forward, in spite of everything. If earlier President Kuchma and now President Yushchenko had understood me we could have had a raw base of our own now and we could have shown you how really rich Ukraine is and how wonderful life in Ukraine could be.
Still we live in the richest country of Europe. Unfortunately, we are not lucky with our leaders. I remember telling to Timoshenko (she was the Prime-minister at that time) once: ”How can you double the price of transportation? Can’t you understand that it is bound to cause increase of everything - meat, milk, butter?”
As far as our enterprise is concerned I am aware of one thing-our workers are now much richer than they were when privatization of the works commenced. Within those years the number of workers was more than doubled, we used to have 38 thousand of workers now we have 100 thousand. Our people have no idea what is delay of wages, to say nothing of wages not paid. At the same time we exert tremendous social efforts. Only this year we have spent 1 million 6 hundred thousand of UAH on repairs of schools in Ilyich district. And we make repairs of many a rural school! We take a good care of roads. See our stadiums, sports areas and palaces of culture! We have built a palace of culture in Khomutov village, a real piece of beauty! We have completed gas supply line in Uman district. You should see how our village in Zhytomyr region has changed within three years! When we came there first we saw complete decay, you should see it now! I can tell you these for a long time but the main thing is that we, Ilyich Iron & Steel Works workers obey law and try not to violate it. I and Serguey Matvienkov decided to go to the Parliament to defend interests of our big collective as well as of our city and our region. So, we have something to fight for.
“Zdes zhivem” newspaper, from Energodar, Zhaporozhie region:
-We have seen what the works do on Mariupol. We have heard how much is spent on social sphere. Does the enterprise have any own problems and how are you going to solve them? How many deputies the works have in the city’s municipality?
V.S.Boyko:
Much remains to be done, it takes time and lots of money. We spent very serious means on ecology. You should have seen how much smoke the works used to produce during the times of the Soviet Union, the difference is really tremendous if you compare it with the present situation. At that time our sintering plant had a nickname of “Dust sanatorium” and the works used to emit thousands tons of dust into atmosphere Now, for example, the first and the second sections of cold processing have lower maximum permissible wastes .than in Europe. We have done tremendous work regarding ecology on our open hearth furnaces No 4, 5, 6 and 3. Now it’s the turn of our main sources of pollution: the blast furnace shop and two open hearth furnaces. We have spent big money but now we discharge cleaner water than water we receive for our process cycle. However, there is a big problem, the works have no own raw materials. Our goal is to find it, in order not to depend on anybody and be able to have acceptable production costs. In order to supply the works with raw materials we are developing the deposit of iron ore jointly with “Zaporozhstal”.
If you go throw the works’ territory you will see tremendous reconstruction: we have launched an oxygen unit, under way is reconstruction of the heating furnace of Rolling Mill 1700, we have launched the construction of pulverized coal injection complex. We have to continue reconstruction of the BOF Shop, where we have now tremendous production volumes now quality seems to be our main task there as we need some really good metal, especially for production of high pressure tubes And there is one more remaining task to replace Open Hearth shop with a BOF Shop. So, very much remains to be done.
As far as our city is concerned we lost the previous election. Though, our share in the city’s council is 40%. But you remember that the previous election was based on “white-blue against orange” principle. But I failed to convince that A. Moroz, the leader of the Socialist Party, did not belong to the “orange” camp. Now, quite many have understood that. It’s a strange thing but it seems to me that in our country honest and decent people are ignored. Take A. Moroz, for example. Did he betray anybody? When? He used to stick to his convictions during the times of Kuchma and he does it under Yushchenko. And it is true that local authorities should be given more power. We have discussed the problem of cleaning of the Kalchik river and works on two other objects. A problem has arisen: we are unable to solve the problem with tender on gas supply to the settlement of Stariy Krym, because if the amount of tender exceeds one million of hryvnas it should be conducted in Kiev! You should try to make an agreement there. We seem to be living in a wild country now. So, where Moroz is not right? Isn’t he right when he says that at the moment Ukraine have four branches of power, rather than three? The Supreme council is a legislative power, there is judicial power and the Cabinet of ministers- the executive power and the President has also some power, the latter having the whole administration in charge of stuff, foreign affairs, home policy, being as big as in the cabinet of ministers. But when it is necessary to be responsible for the situation in the country the government and Supreme council seems to be scapegoats. Law has to preside over everything. But if the country’s leaders make violations of law what should be expected of ordinary citizens?
“Vladimir Vecherniy”, a newspaper from Volyn region:
Q- We’ve convinced that our enterprise has a wide production range. What are the countries that you have established links with and where do you sell your production?
V.S. Boyko:
-We supply much products to Russia and Belarus. Our production is also delivered to Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Rumania, Greece, Poland, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, different countries of the world, including the USA and Canada. We have no problems with the production sales. We try to work, using direct connections, not establishing any joint ventures. We have only two branch offices abroad-one in Moscow and one in Singapore, both were officially registered in our Foreign affairs ministry. We did not create any foreign bank accounts, or off-shore branches, so we are not afraid of any inspections. We are well aware that state cannot exist without taxes, but in our turn we demand some respect, especially as far as VAT refunding is concerned. This is really very important for us as Ilyich Iron & Steel Works exports more than 70 % of its production.
“Khersonskie Vesti” newspaper, from Kherson:
What has happened to “Ilyichevets” football club this season? What are their perspectives? Are you determined to develop football in future?
V.S.Boyko:
-Haven’t you seen yet, that Mariupol is the biggest football city in Ukraine? You should pay a visit to our football grounds and stadiums. I’m convinced that “Ilyichevets” will play in the Premier league. If not in the next season, then one year later. There was a game yesterday our youngsters, born in 1988-1989. “Ilyichevets-2” team played against “Shakhtar-3”. It was pleasant to watch. By the way, all our schools take part in “Lether ball” tournament, there are other competitions .We have built a stadium in Volodarskoye settlement, and a beauty of a stadium in Uman! We are developing not only football, we have a water polo team of our own, the one that is bound to become 10 times national champions and they always take part in European cups.
I’m not telling you anything about our boxers and track and field athletes, who have good opportunities for training after commissioning of our roofed stadium, with one football pitch, three big gymnasiums and two smaller ones. We’ll be able to distract many kids from the streets!
I dream of the time when every Mariupol yard will have its sports ground.
Lyudmila Olkhovskaya, the director of the Journalists’ fund:
“Ukraine seen by editors” action, which the Journalists’ fund organizes for three consecutive years has the aim to get acquainted with the region , eye it benevolently and tell about it in millions of copies, throughout the country what good Ukraine has.
Because people are already sick and tired of negative and they are eager to know, if there are any rays of light that warm up our lives or any good examples and people that are really able to raise Ukraine. We must know our country to be proud of it and love it. Thank you very much for a chance to visit Ilyich Iron & Steel Works. What we saw here is really magnificent.
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