Government ministers have described reforms in Ukraine as almost a suicide mission, with corrupt officials in top law enforcement positions blocking the way.
Despite the entry of new officials to government ministries and new lawmakers to parliament, a select group of individuals continue to sabotage much-needed reforms and preserve the old guard, Ukrainian ministers agreed at the Yes forum in Kyiv on Sept. 12.
Anders Aslund of the Atlantic Council said the main culprits were in top law enforcement positions, with “courts that are pervasively corrupt.” He called for a “complete lustration of prosecutors and judges,” lamenting the fact that so far only 2,000 had been ousted.
“Populists still want to support the old oligarchy regime,” he said.
Activists in Ukraine have long claimed that Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin is sabotaging reforms in his office by protecting corrupt officials from prosecution.
In one recent high-profile case in July, Oleg Korniets, a deputy prosecutor in Kyiv, was arrested on suspicion of accepting massive bribes, including diamonds. He was quickly released on bail, which some lawmakers said had been set far too low.
The case against Korniets and other officials prompted the resignation of First Deputy Prosecutor General Volodymyr Huzyr, who many had accused of trying to cover up for Korniets and other officials, revealing rampant corruption among prosecutors.
Infrastructure Minister Andriy Pyvovarsky said officials who were resistant to change were not limited to the prosecutor’s office, however.
He described his job of implementing wide-ranging reforms as being nearly suicidal, saying he had begun to live “every single day as if it’s the last day” because of how much work must get done in a short period of time.
Pyvovarsky said he’d grown accustomed to being despised by bureaucrats who oppose reforms, and that many of the same people had launched attacks in the press against him and other reform-minded ministers.
With a long history of promised but failed reforms, twenty percent of the country’s wealth still remains in the hands of about ten individuals. Ukraine ranked 96th in the 2015 Doing Business rating by the World Bank Group.
It is precisely for this reason that communication is essential for the government to win over public support of the latest reforms, said Ivan Miklos, the former finance minister of the Slovak Republic.
“With a country that has such a difficult legacy as Ukraine has … it is inevitable that after such difficulties, a transition period is impossible to avoid. That is why communication is very important here,” Miklos said. “You have to convince people that it will be different this time.”
Aivaras Abromavicius, Ukraine’s minister of economic development and trade, said the government’s priorities should be to improve the investment climate and fight corruption.
He singled out the new patrol police in Kyiv as an example to be followed in all other sectors, saying the old way should be completely overhauled in favor of an entirely new system.
Oleksiy Pavlenko, Ukraine’s agricultural minister, compared the country’s reforms to a war similar to that in the east – although this one was being waged against “bureaucracy and corruption” instead of Russian-backed separatists.“This is our own ATO,” Pavlenko said, referring to the anti-terrorist operations zone throughout the east of the country.
Pavlenko said great progress had been made despite the lingering problems, noting that his ministry had managed to achieve record harvests in the east even despite the war.
Aslund said that despite the lingering problems, the new Ukrainian ministers were on the right path.
“What is being done now is just what is needed,” he said.
