Ukrainian govt ministers show support for PM Honcharuk who resigned over scandalous recordings
KYIV. Jan 17 (Interfax) - A number of Ukrainian government ministers have publicly supported Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk after the latter tendered his resignation over controversial recordings supposedly made at government meetings were leaked online.
In particular, Deputy Prime Minister and Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said he supports Honcharuk and the entire government team.
"Each day, we've been cleaning the mess of clumsy management left by the previous teams in most fields. Each day, our team has been depriving budget thieves of their sources of income. We've been getting our knocks for this, and quite painful ones, too. But this is not a problem. We didn't come to win political ratings. We came together with the president to make real change," Fedorov wrote in a Facebook post on Friday.
He said he was not clinging to his office.
Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Dmytro Kuleba also said he respected the prime minister's decision.
"As a team member, I have been doing and am doing everything possible for the country to change for the better, receive even more international support, and move ahead. This was fun and it was important. But life is turbulent. Especially political life," Kuleba wrote in a post on social media.
Oksana Kolyada, the minister for veterans' affairs, temporarily occupied territories, and internally displaced persons, described the current government team as a classical technocratic government, "without political ambitions, without an oligarchic past, and without a hidden agenda."
"I see the latest political games surrounding the government as an attempt to impose some weird political position on a team of technocrats. It won't happen. Therefore, I support the premier's position. Waiting for the president's decision," Kolyada wrote on Facebook.
Education and Science Minister Hanna Novosad said that all government members are one team, which cannot achieve results without confidence and interaction, and this is why she supports the prime minister's decision. "But nobody has cancelled our work, and so we keep working. Until further decisions are made, whatever they are," she said.
Social Policy Minister Yulia Sokolovska said, "We are a united team and therefore support the prime minister's position and are awaiting the president's decision. And we are continuing to work."
Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk said on Friday morning that he had tendered his resignation to President Volodymyr Zelensky in order to dispel any speculations alleging that the government ministers and he personally do not have enough respect for the president.