The State Property Committee has scrapped the results of the privatization auction of the GAZ car factory and ruled that the auction be held again, a senior privatization official said Tuesday.


Pyotr Mostovoi, first deputy chairman of the State Property Committee, said the special commission will review all share purchases at the auction and will throw out the illegal ones.


Proper transactions, however, will remain valid, he said.


A government commission found earlier this month that the managers of the GAZ factory in Nizhny Novgorod used state credits to maintain control over their enterprise.


Last Friday, Anatoly Chubais, chairman of the State Property Committee, signed a decree, obtained by The Moscow Times on Tuesday, ordering results of the auction invalidated and continuing the sell-off until May 15.


"We will study all the transactions and will cancel the ones proved to be illegal," said Mostovoi.


Mostovoi admitted Tuesday that the prolongation of the GAZ auction was not the first such decision by the State Property Committee. "It was the most publicized case, not the only one," he said.


In a separate decree dated Feb. 23, the State Property Committee ruled to prolong the privatization auction of the giant Magnitogorsk Metallurgy Works in Siberia until June 15, 1994.


Antonina Volobuyeva, manager at the All-Russian Auction Center, which handles the privatization of the largest enterprises, said the auction was prolonged because very few bids have been received so far.


The announcements came at a press conference Tuesday where privatization officials disclosed that two thirds of all privatization vouchers distributed to Russians late in 1992 have been used so far to privatize about 70 percent of the country's enterprises.


Voucher auctions of many attractive industry giants were underway, the official said.


He said that 67 million vouchers, or nearly 70 percent of all privatization checks distributed in Russia, have already been invested.


Mostovoi said that upcoming auctions of a giant Lukoil oil company and Gazprom gas conglomerate were likely to attract large numbers of vouchers.


Siberian oil and chemical conglomerate Angarsknefteorgsintez became this week the 100th giant Russian enterprise put up for sale for privatization vouchers at the All-Russian Action Center.