Moskal ordered to stop export of wood (Document)

Verification of the legality of timber exports initiated by the Transcarpathian Regional State Administration continues to reveal gross irregularities in customs documentation.

– The diplomatic missions of Ukraine, to which we sent letters to clarify types of activities of the companies – recipients of Ukrainian wood, inform that most of the companies deal with logs and industrial wood, rather than fuel wood, – the head of Regional State Administration Hennadiy Moskal said. – That is, our forestries from all over Ukraine ship logs abroad as firewood, while the recipient companies do not work with firewood at all. The most recent confirmation of these facts, that we received, concerns the Austrian company Gesselschaft mbH, which is waiting for 22 cars of Ukrainian wood registered as fuel wood from Khmelnytsky, Lviv and Zhytomyr regions. Although it is engaged in wholesale trade in timber and carries out transit trade in logs.

Since the shippers of the wood – SE "Shepetivka forestry" (Khmelnytsky region), "Skolye State Forest anf Hunting Range" and "Halsillis" (Lviv region), and SE "Grodno forestry" (Zhytomyr region) – violated the requirements of the law "On peculiarities of state regulation of business entities related to sale and export of timber," I have instructed the head of the Transcarpathian customs office not to clear timber for export to the enterprise. Now, reports on violation of customs rules over these facts are being drawn up and will be sent to the court to confiscate the detained timber in favour of the state.