Rinat Akhmetov will make Mariupol air cleaner, but not immediately

On December 1, 2012, speaking at a meeting with journalists after summing up the “Program for overcoming the tuberculosis epidemic in the Donetsk region of 2007-2012”, the Ukrainian billionaire, the owner of the Azovstal factories and Ilyich Rinat Akhmetov promised that the air in Mariupol would not work out, but it would not be possible to do this instantly.

“When you say that Rinat came to Mariupol and people have nothing to breathe, you are saying dishonestly because both plants were built before Rinat came to the city of Mariupol. You say that Rinat has two plants in excessive and our greed does not allow people to breathe clean air, then I say that you are deceiving, saying that our greed does not allow people to breathe clean air. Let's see the balance of enterprises completely, let's make a report and we will see that in three to four years the losses of both plants amounted to more than ten billion hryvnias, and this is 1 billion 250 million dollars. And we repaid these losses from our own funds, ”said Rinat Akhmetov.

He noted that he is ready for an honest dialogue with environmental activists. “These plants are built before me. What did I come with? With three main things. I want Mariupol to have a worthy job, a worthy salary and a worthy life. Under the words worthy of life, I mean clean air. How can we come to these three goals? Only huge investments. We must modernize enterprises, we must make our enterprises competitive, so that there are fewer harmful emissions into the atmosphere - this is my philosophy. One of the activists agreed with me. If you say that let's close the enterprises, but do not fire people, then you are deceiving. How can I close the enterprises and not to fire people? You can’t close production, but people cannot be fired, ”he said. - My goal, and I will do everything for this so that there is clean air in Mariupol, so that there is a worthy job in Mariupol, so that there is a worthy salary in Mariupol. Despite the crisis, we will invest and modernize enterprises, which means that in the end there will be playgrounds, and the sports component will be present, and the main thing is that people will receive a decent job, a decent salary and a decent life. They will have something to breathe. To do this, we must go together the most difficult path and you need to have patience. ”

Rinat Leonidovich noted that a certain time is required to improve the ecology of Mariupol. Having invested more than two billion dollars in Mariupol factories today, it has already been possible to achieve a certain decrease in harmful emissions, Rinat Akhmetov emphasized.