Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is angry with politician Mikheil Saakashvili because he deprived the president of corruption finance flows from Odesa region when he served as the governor there, Saakashvili said.

"The Ukrainian president is lying because he is fully aware that what he says isn't true. He is speaking not of the money which should have gone into the budget, he is speaking of the money which should have come into his pocket from the Odesa customs that didn't come when I had headed [the region]," Saakashvili said at 112. Ukraine TV channel on Thursday.

While serving as the governor of the Odesa regional state administration, Saakashvili shut down corruption finance flows, which had been coming from the 7th Kilometer market and other projects in the region, the politician said.

"He lost flows from the Odesa region. Poroshenko is angry with me," Saakashvili said.

On January 12, while presenting the new Odesa region governor Maksym Stepanov in Odesa, Ukrainian President Poroshenko criticized the former government of the region. He said that he has great expectations for Stepanov, especially in the directions, in which the former governor failed to achieve success. In particular, the president called on the new governor to facilitate job creation and development of business in the region, ensure the fight against crime in cooperation with the prosecutor's office, the Security Service of Ukraine and police.

As reported, on November 7, 2016, Saakashvili said that he was resigning from the post of Odesa regional state administration head because he was tired of constant deception and corruption, including on the part of the authorities in Kyiv, and the Ukrainian government agreed on Saakashvili's dismissal from his post on November 9.

Poroshenko signed a decree dismissing Saakashvili from the post of Odesa state regional administration head, as well as from the post of his external advisor, in the evening of November 9.