Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers has suspended Roman Nasirov as the head of the State Fiscal Service for a period of investigation.

The corresponding decision was taken at an extraordinary government meeting in Kyiv on Friday, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported.

Before presenting this decision of the government for consideration, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said that the head of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine "will make his proposals for the removal of Roman Mykhailovych Nasirov from his office in order to ensure an absolutely objective and impartial investigation."

The prime minister said that open and fair investigation against Nasirov is required.

"We would like the investigation to be entirely objective, transparent and effective. If a person is guilty, then he should be punished, if he is not guilty, then he should be acquitted. But it's only a matter of time and the effectiveness of the investigation," Groysman said.

On Friday morning, March 3, head of the PGO's Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) Nazar Kholodyntsky reported that Nasirov was handed a notice of suspicion of committing a crime under Part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (abuse of power, resulting in grave consequences, is punishable by imprisonment from three to six years).

Investigators believe that the head of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine Roman Nasirov during 2015-2016, acting in the interests of the people's deputy Oleksandr Onyshchenko, provided managers of regional and territorial authorities of the SFS with illegal instructions to take groundless decisions on the tax debt installment of Ltd. Khas Company, Ltd. Karpatnadrainvest, LLC Nadra Geocenter. During this period Nasirov alone took illegal decisions on installment of financial obligations of these companies, which had no legal grounds for it, and did not provide the documents required for this purpose. These decisions were taken with the violation of a specific legal procedure, namely in the absence of proper justification and legal basis.

According to Kholodnytsky, investigators believe actions by the head of Ukraine's State Fiscal Service Roman Nasirov resulted in the loss of about UAH 2 billion to the state budget. Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) will recommend Nasirov's sacking.