President Zelensky (left) said Honcharuk must tackle a number of key issues to keep his job
KIEV, Jan 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has rejected a resignation offer by Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk over a leaked audiotape scandal.
“I decided to give you a chance,” Zelensky told the prime minister during a “clear the air” Friday meeting.
But he said this was dependant on Honcharuk’s ability to tackle a number of pressing issues.
In the tape, a voice sounding like Honcharuk’s says Zelensky only has a “primitive” grasp of economics.
Honcharuk, a 35-year-old trained lawyer, also appears to admit that he himself is not good at economics.
The authenticity of the recording has not been officially confirmed.
Zelensky, a 41-year-old TV comedian and businessman, was elected last April, trouncing President Petro Poroshenko.
The audiotape affair comes at a difficult time for Zelensky, as his relations with President Donald Trump are under intense scrutiny. The US president is being impeached for allegedly trying to pressure Zelensky into investigating political rival Joe Biden.
At Friday’s meeting in Kyiv, the president described the situation around the leaked recording as “very unpleasant”.
But he said he decided to keep the prime-minister and his cabinet, taking into account that the public had “great trust” in them when the government was formed last August.
“You have not yet repaid this loan to our society,” Zelensky said.
At the same time, Zelensky warned that Honcharuk must tackle the issue of high salaries among government ministers and other issues to keep his job.
The president also gave the Ukrainian authorities two weeks to track down the source of the leak.
The controversial audiotape was uploaded to an anonymous YouTube channel on Wednesday evening.
Honcharuk was apparently discussing the national budget during a December meeting with the finance minister and National Bank of Ukraine.
Writing on social media, Honcharuk said the recordings had been edited from several fragments of government meetings to create the false impression that he did not respect the president.
He said Zelensky was “a model of honesty for me”, but “to remove any doubts about our respect and trust in the president, I wrote a resignation offer”.
Before joining the Zelensky team Honcharuk worked as a commercial lawyer. He is the youngest prime minister in Ukraine’s history. — NNN-AGENCIES