Following the request of the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine the National Council inspected the documents on creating the BTB channel.
Following the request of the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine (GPU) the National Council run an unscheduled inspection of the BTB channel, owned by the National Bank of Ukraine, regarding the compliance with the legal requirements of the broadcaster’s licensing, as Telekritika informs.
As explained by Grigory Shverk, the Deputy Chairman of the National Council, the inspection was required to find out whether the National Bank of Ukraine had been authorized to establish a radio and television company.
We shall recall that the GPU’s investigation was initiated in May of past year and caused by suspected embezzlement of public funds by Sergei Arbuzov, the former Chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine, while creating the bank’s TV channel.
The inspection fixed that the LLC Bank TV was founded on 17.06.2011, pursuant to the resolution of Board of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) № 196 dated 17.06.2011 and the minutes of the General Meeting of Bank TV № 1 dated 17.06 .2011, with the authorized capital of UAH 10 million and the share of the National Bank of Ukraine of 100%.
The TV channel’s Charter was approved by the General Meeting of LLC Bank TV on 17.06.2011. It determined that the channel’s creation was induced to provide citizens with timely, true and complete information about the operation, policy and performance of the main functions of the National Bank by making a full use of information technology.
But it did not authorize NBU to establish a TV and radio company, as Article 71 of the Law of Ukraine On the National Bank of Ukraine in that time version forbade it to be a shareholder or member of banks and other companies and institutions.
At the same time the Laws On Television and Radio Broadcasting and On the National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council of Ukraine did not authorize the National Council to require any additional documents from the applicants for the license. For this reason, the regulatory authority could not fix the compliance with the requirements of Article 12 of the Law On Television and Radio Broadcasting at the moment of creating the Bank’s channel.
The National Council will submit all copies of inspection reports to the GPU.
We shall recall that in late March of present year the Cabinet of Ministers passed the BTB channel to the Ministry of Information Policy. There have been also passed recently under the control of that Ministry the channel UTR and the news agency Ukrinform.
