Employees of Sumy bakery asking country authorities to protect company from illegal actions of city administration

Kyiv, June 12 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Employees of Sumy Bakery LLC (the Sumska Palianytsia brand) have sent an open letter to the Ukrainian president, prime minister, prosecutor general and chairman of the Sumy Regional Administration asking that they protect the company and its property from illegal actions taken by Sumy city authorities.

The head of the law department of the company, Kateryna Chub, said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday that the conflict of the company with city authorities has lasted since 2009, and the latter groundlessly refused to satisfy applications from the company to place new outlets for selling bread. However, on the night of June 6 to June 7, 2013, a series of cases of arson at the bakery's outlets was registered.

"Arson was committed to hinder the legal business operations of the company. A group of criminals deliberately damaged three outlets that belonged to the bakery, causing damage of over UAH 100,000," Chub said.

According to representative of the bakery, the city mayor is personally interested in removing the company from the market. He said in public that he prefers products of Saltovsky Bakery (Kharkiv).

"Officials are continually putting pressure on the bakery. Instead of developing the company, creating new jobs and increasing payments to the local budget, the bakery has to continually defend itself from invasions of officials," said a defense lawyer of the company, Yevhen Tkachenko.

The chief security officer at the bakery, Serhiy Kravchenko said that at present the security service has to patrol the company's outlets. On the night of June 9 to June 10, 2013 two suspicious persons with petrol canisters were detained and handed over to the police.

The bakery asked the Sumy region prosecutor general to take the investigation under its personal control not allow pressure to be put on investigators.

The Sumy Bakery supplies bread to consumers in Sumy city and region. A total of 700 people work at the bakery. The range of products amounts to over 200 items.