Economic Development and Trade Minister of Ukraine Aivaras Abromavicius has accused MP Ihor Kononenko of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc of pressing on the ministry to appoint his candidates into agencies and state companies, said that the ministry was obstructed in nominating its candidates for government.

"My team and I do not want to be a cover for blatant corruption, puppets for those who want to control public money the way this was done by the previous authorities. These people have names, and I will name one of them. This is Ihor Kononenko. Being a representative of a political force that nominated me for this post, he has done much over the past month to block my work and the work of the ministry," he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Wednesday.

Abromavicius listed the problems with the appointment of directors of Electrotyazhmash, Ukrkhimtransammiak, the Mining and Chemical Corporation, the impossibility to change the head of the Service of Intellectual Property, the reluctance to appoint the head of the State Statistics Committee for a few months.

The minister added that everybody has known about the problem with the appointment of the heads of these enterprises and institutions for a long time, but no assistance has been received in solving these problems.

According to Abromavicius, members of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc controlled by Kononenko first drafted a resolution on his dismissal, and then handed it to the Vidrodzhennia (Revival) Party and put it on the agenda of the Verkhovna Rada.

"In several months they have collected as many as 18 votes. Last year, Ihor Kononenko actively lobbied his people to the post of director general of Ukrkhimtransammiak. Kononenko had a direct interest in the company, where instead of helping me to overthrow [Viktor] Bondyk of the Party of Regions, he implanted his own people there, who jointly manage the enterprise," the head of the ministry said.

He also said that an MP directly controlled by Kononenko pressed for appointing his people in Derzhzovnishinform, powder metallurgy plants and several other enterprises.

"The culmination of this personnel lawlessness and desire of a complete control over the [money] flows was the desire to have his person in the post of deputy economy minister, who would be in charge of Naftogaz and other state-owned enterprises. In the end, two days ago his candidate brought a complete package of documents and said: 'I'm your new deputy, I'm on Kononenko's team and my candidacy has been agreed higher up. After that, I received a call from the president's administration urging me to take the man and another one for the post of deputy minister for defense," Abromavicius said.

Asked if he could name other people obstructing the work of the ministry, Abromavicius noted that there are many of them.