OREANDA-NEWS. April 23, 2015. Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk demanded from Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Volodymyr Demchyshyn to fulfil previous orders and immediately submit to the Government of Ukraine a program of reforming the coal industry.

Presently the Government has allocated UAH 400 million to pay off arrears of wages at the state-owned mines. The sum of UAH 300 million was sent to the miners last week. The Prime Minister put to the Minister a task to ensure the payment of the remaining sum worth UAH 100 million without delay.

However, according to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, implementation of these orders is just "fire fighting". Instead we need to ensure gradual settlement of problems of the coal industry through a structured programme of reforming the coal industry, which, notably, shall provide for the development and privatization of promising mines as well as preservation and liquidation of others.

An order to draft a programme of changes and to maintain permanent working dialogue between the leadership of the Ministry and representatives of the branch was issued by Arseniy Yatsenyuk two months ago.

The Prime Minister of Ukraine expects from the Minister of Energy and Coal Industry a report on implementation of Government decisions and the draft programme of reforms in the coal sector for considering by the Cabinet of Ministers.

Today, the working group composed of Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers Hanna Onyshchenko, First Deputy Minister of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine Ihor Martynenkov, First Deputy Finance Minister Ihor Umansky and Deputy Economy Minister Yulia Klymenko invited to a meeting representatives of the miners who had gathered in Kyiv.