As the second anniversary of the EuroMaidan Revolution approaches on Nov. 21, President Petro Poroshenko delivered a confident speech at an anti-corruption conference in Kyiv, stating that the nation was on the right path to overcoming graft.
“We are now completing the first, institutional and juridical phase of the
fight against corruption,” Poroshenko said on Nov. 16 at the event, which was
arranged by the president’s own National Reform Council.
But others in attendance weren’t so upbeat. The reason being, they perceive
a lack of will to actually use the new instruments the government has to combat
corruption.
Odesa Oblast Governor Mikheil Saakashvili said the limited reforms achieved
were bound to fail if the entire system didn’t change as well. Isolated reforms
would be nullified by a pervasive and overwhelming culture of power abuse, he
said.
That was what befell the drive to reform Georgian courts before he became
president, Saakashvili said. Although highly praised by the World Bank, the new
judges had quit within six months because there was no political will to have a
proper court system operating. Instead, corrupt, backroom deals flourished,
having been brokered at the police and prosecution level before cases even got
to the courts.
“The same fate awaits your patrol police, diesel fuel purchases (at
competitive prices for the railways) and deregulation (efforts),” Saakashvili said at the conference, addressing the limited
progress reported by Infrastructure Minister
Andriy Pyvovarsky and Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius.
And while the president proudly listed “a transparent and competitive
hiring processes for the heads” of new anti-graft bodies, 4,000 prosecutors
being laid off, and 700 being hired instead, Saakashvili said Poroshenko’s
list of achievements falls well short of the total overhaul that is needed.
Vitaliy Shabunin, chairman of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, also
criticized Poroshenko for failing to mention that a presidential appointee –
the prosecutor general – had attempted to retain political influence over
appointments to a board selecting a new chief anti-corruption prosecutor. If
the old guard stayed in place, nothing would be achieved, Shabunin told the
Kyiv Post.
He rejected the president’s argument that because only two of the 11
members of the board were prosecutors, the new chief anti-corruption prosecutor
would be “truly independent.” “The president (still) controls the majority of
that board,” Shabunin said.
Moreover, Saakashvili claimed that one of the front-runners to become the
chief anti-corruption prosecutor, Roman Hovda, a former head of the Odesa
Oblast prosecution service, was known for sabotaging local businesses.
Hovda’s office blocked the setting up of a ferry connection across the
Danube River that would have bypassed the road between to Romania through
Moldova, which in turn would have given an economic boost to the region.
“Now he is getting promoted and might become the chief anti-corruption
prosecutor,” Saakashvili said, shaking his head.
Hovda couldn’t be reached for comment. He earlier dismissed the
allegations.
Pyvovarsky and Abromavicius also said that they didn’t
have enough money to pay their staff proper salaries. As a result, key
personnel needed to turn government agencies around and make them serve the
public are quitting, they said.
Saakashvili went on to describe how his reforms in Odesa had been subverted
one by one. He said his zero-tolerance for corruption in Odesa’s customs had
been circumvented by regional custom offices elsewhere in the country.
Saakashvili cited the Odesa Airport, which he said was about to be upgraded
with a rebuilt runway and terminal, making it a potential competitor to Kyiv’s
airport.
“So what do you think happened?” he asked. “The prosecutors today opened a
lawsuit to stop the work. That was our only remaining (major) project still
moving ahead – they’ve blocked all the others!”
Saakashvili concluded that “there is no political will (for reform) in the
government,” but then corrected himself. Pointing to Pyvovarsky and Abromavicius sitting next to him, he said “some ministers
have the will and do make an effort. But we have no government will; We don’t
have a government. We’re being fooled by people who want to retain their
profitable schemes.”
Instead, he said, “there is a willingness to be corrupt, and that is
extremely effective and influential.”
“The problem is systemic,” he said pointing at Prime Minister Arseniy
Yatsenyuk.
Saakashvili warned that public administration could simply fall apart if
nothing was done. “And what would (Mykola) Martynenko do then?” he said,
referring to an influential lawmaker from Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front party, who
is being investigated by Swiss authorities on suspicion of bribery and,
according to Ukrainian journalistic investigations, is suspected siphoning
funds from state-owned enterprises.
Martynenko has publicly
repeatedly rejected the allegations.
Dmytro Kotliar, a resident adviser to the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development Anti-Corruption Network for Eastern
Europe and Central Asia and a former deputy minister of justice, agreed with
Saakashvili that not much had changed.
“The worst thing is the impunity at all levels” when it
comes to corruption, Kotliar told the Kyiv Post.
However, he dismissed criticism that there are too
many new anti-corruption bodies. It is crucial that each body focuses on its
own specific task, he said. Moreover, it was important to have the right
agencies in place so they can spring into action when the political will
emerges, he added.
Kotliar said he hoped that the new law on transparent
party financing would be instrumental in breaking the vicious circle of vested
interests buying influence and capturing the government.
He also criticized the alleged
practice of supplementing key top officials’ low salaries with unofficial payments.
“Even if such money is provided in good faith, it still
amounts to yet another form of state capture,” Kotliar said.
One attendee at the
conference, Canadian-Ukrainian consultant and long-term resident of Ukraine Lubomyr Markevych, struck the gloomiest note at the
event, saying that after 20 years, he didn’t put much faith in Kotliar’s hopes
of gradual change.
“It might be over for Ukraine. This conference should
have been held a year ago,” Markevych said.
Kyiv Post
staff writer Johannes Wamberg Andersen can be reached at [email protected]
