Finance

Finance

Head of State Security Service appointed Ukraineâ€™s FinMinister

19 January 2012 07:42 (UTC +04:00)

Baku - APA-Economics. Ukraine’s finance minister resigned Wednesday amid pressure over a blocked $15 billion International Monetary Fund loan and the president appointed the head of the state security service and former economy minister â€” a longtime ally â€” to replace him, APA reports citing Ukrainian media.

Fedir Yaroshenko, 62, didn’t explain why he was resigning, saying in televised comments only that he hoped his successor would make few mistakes and work effectively. But analysts say the resignation hammers home Ukraineâ€™s tough economic position and suggest President Viktor Yanukovych is looking to deflect blame over economic hardships onto his Cabinet ahead of parliamentary elections this fall.

Yanukovych appointed his longtime ally Valery Khoroshkovsky, a media magnate who had headed Ukraine’s Security Service for the past two years. Khoroshkovsky also was the country’s economy minister in Yanukovych’s government in 2002-4.