Independent technocrats
and volunteers entered the government in order to achieve results, but the post-Soviet
kleptocratic/oligarchic system closed the ranks and sucked them in into the
slimy swamp of the process. Honest people, after having floundered in it
for months, escape and run away in horror.
Western
partners and creditors also figured this out. They wave the stick of the International Monetary Fund,
regularly delegate Joe Biden to give another warning, and wave all kinds of carrots
for the results.
Almost daily we see
news that international donors are ready to provide Ukraine with sizeable
assistance in exchange for real reforms, applying some kind of “we pay as you
go” principle.
But no, we stand by our
unique path, the process is much more important than the results, because the process is the last resort for the old system.
Our unique
know-how – the system of process – even generated a new special linguistic
term, not translatable into any other language, something like “to be solving.”
Other languages use “to solve,” but we say
“to be solving.”
Guess, which one of
these two formulas can lead to results?
Even in the old Georgia, dominated by clans and corruption, under the
system of “friends and family” (“akhlobeli”), a neighbor called a relative, a
relative called a friend with only one goal: to solve a problem. In
Ukraine some Kum, which is another unique notion, a system based
on godfather or godmother of your kids (a colleague and I once spent an entire
evening, and more than one bottle of Horylka, trying to explain this phenomenon
to a prominent United Kingdom finance analyst, and got a blank stare at the end), promises
to call someone, somebody knows someone somewhere, someone can or cannot “be
solving” your problem, and ultimately the process swallows the goal, someone profits
and someone loses, but the system is still there intact.
This is basically
our entire life during the past 24 years, but the freshest example is
reformatting of the Rada coalition and the Cabinet.
The coalition agreement has not been
fulfilled, no structural reforms have been achieved, the corruptioneers – old
and new – are still around, and the Cabinet has started falling apart in
December, culminating in recent resignation of Aivaras Abromavichus and his
team, and triggering a political crisis.
What is the response of the president and the Rada? No, verbally it sounds promising, “we will
reformat the Cabinet!,” but in reality?
It
is still the good old process: clandestine flickering, bargaining, some blurred
activities, but behind all this we still hear “disgusting sniffing and
slurping” (using the apt expression of a blogger Kirill Sazonov), of the system
busy with graft.
Only people
from outside of this system can be truly result-oriented, and it is not
surprising that most of them are foreigners, who have never participated in the process, and who have achieved,
despite the fierce resistance of the system, some results within two years.
Yes,
the results are slow, yes, they are incomplete, but they are real: Abromavichus with his team at the Economics
Ministry introduced the electronic procurement system Prozorro, pushed for
deregulation and seriously cut the bureaucratic apparatus; Eka Zguladze and Khatia Dekanoidze carried out
the national police reform; Natalie Jaresko restructured the debt and showed
first results of the tax reform (managing to really decrease the tax burden on
the salaries); volunteers fought for reforms at the Defense Ministry, supplied
the Army, helped our warriors and their families, as well as internal refugees; Governor Mikheil Saakashvili in Odessa – showed
results on many fronts, focusing on radical simplification and deregulation of
bureaucratic procedures, reforming the customs, undertaking infrastructure projects (the airport, the roads), and directing
public funds into the treasury.
Saakashvili,
by the way, is a fanatic of the public treasury, in Georgia under his
leadership, everything went straight there: taxes, customs fees, assistance
from Western donors, the confiscated corruption assets, proceeds from privatization,
and the money saved from reforms – nothing disappeared in the process. For our ruling class, however, the filling up
of the public coffers and making a life easier for the average citizen or business
– is not the result at all, this is in fact an anti-result – what a nightmare, money
flowing past their pockets and into the treasury!
It is a
simple formula: corruption is a process reserved for those who belong, for
anybody who is a part of the process.
And who is the target of the process? This is Ukraine and the rest of
us.
The system manipulates public
opinion: “Varangian,” “barnstormer,” “get out of Ukraine!” and the
infamous “get out of my country!” (this coming from an Armenian to a Georgian,
both naturalized Ukrainian citizens – LOL!).
The propaganda tools are quite primitive, fully mastered under USSR,
which today remain the key Kremlin weapon: white is black, and black is white,
no shades of gray. If repeated for
years, ignoring any facts or common sense, people unconsciously get used to it,
and just take it as a given.
I can
illustrate this on an example I have observed most closely: Saakashvili reforms
in Georgia. Only two-three clichés have been used: “there are no reforms, only
PR,” “everything he does is not for average people” and “yes, he eliminated
corruption at the lower levels, but there is a lot of corruption at the top.”
Here is a symbolic picture for you: in
Batumi, the city resurrected by Misha and his team from a post-Soviet junkyard,
the city of flourishing small small and medium sized businesses, surrounded by wonderful parks, dancing
fountains, clean beaches, full with
tourists and locals, on a beautifully restored square – stands one of the
leaders of the current pro-Ivanishvili government, the government which
achieved nothing for two years and still benefits from Saakashvili
reforms. So he stands, and announces to
the public: “What Saakashvili did? He did nothing, it was only PR!” Indeed, why bother believing your own eyes.
But too many
are buying this. Why bother to analyze,
think, search your soul, and finally get up from the couch and do something?
Here is somebody to blame for everything, it is all simple and clear, he did
nothing, only PR!
At the end
of Saakashvili term, I was given a ride from the Tbilisi airport by an old friend. Only a few years before that the country was
plunged by shortages of electricity, heating and water; ordinary people were
afraid to go out because armed criminals were roaming the streets, police did
nothing to protect them, they had to give bribes for every step of the way, and
had lost hope. Now we were driving on a
smooth, clean and well-lit road, it was a late night, but the city was bustling
with people, filling up the restaurants and happily taking walks, the police
was everywhere guarding their safety (the confidence rating of the new police
almost reached the level of the Georgian Orthodox Church). My friend owned a successful business, paid
his taxes, he has forgotten when he was last abuse by the authorities, he
reached his village, which before took hours to drive through dirt roads, via a
new highway in 40 minutes, the children at a public school were provided with
new laptops, and native-speaking English teachers, who came from all over the
world answering Misha’s call for volunteers. And here comes our dialog. He: “you cannot imagine how bad it is around
here!” Me: “???” He: (you’ve guessed it) “this is all smoke
screen, nothing but PR!” Me: “What’s
your problem?” He: “I do not have a
problem, but I heard on TV yesterday that in some town a girl died because the
ambulance came too late, this is all Misha’s fault!”
The system
in Ukraine can relax, this primitive propaganda is ready for mass consumption,
it has been tested and can be easily exported.
Ukrainian blogosphere is already packed with similar comments, nothing
original, just the same three clichés.
And then Prime Minister Arseniy Yatesenyuk joins the chorus: Saakashvili is only about PR,
he has not achieved much in Georgia.
Misha in response presents the impressive list of fantastic results,
confirmed by serious international organizations, by facts and numbers, but
Yatsenyuk cannot be bothered, results are of no interest to him, only the process matters.
In Georgia
and in Baltic States the old system was destroyed from inside by the people
with new mentality and values, many of whom started their careers under the old
system, but then understood its detrimental nature for the future of their
countries, and did everything possible to replace it. They were not shy to plead for external
assistance, they invited en masse foreign experts, trained their civil servants abroad, copied successful reforms of other countries,
everybody worked together for the Results.
In Ukraine,
within 24 years, the monster of the old system penetrated all levels of power
from top to bottom, it sucked in a huge number of people, a mature corrupt
class was formed, and the people who belong to this system passed the point of
no return long time ago. There is no
hope that a courageous reformer will emerge from their ranks. That is why the society must clearly and
unanimously formulate the demand for immediate Results, and massively attract
people from outside the system to achieve them, while those who belong to the
system must face the choice: if you are not part of the solution, you are part
of the problem.
Our society
should not complain and buy into all kinds of excuses why the results cannot be
achieved (“we need time,” “we are at war,”,“our country is too big,” “to be
solving,” “we will reformat”, etc.), but should unanimously stand behind those
“barnstormers” and local activists who went against the system and are working
towards the results.
There are not
enough of them, we need a critical mass, let them arrive in shifts and rotate during
the transition period, they can be Balts, Brits, Poles, Georgians, our own old
and new diaspora, and all others who carry modern civilized values, knowledge
and experience, let them take all leading positions at the government, courts,
police, customs, procurement – the key requirement for them is to deliver fast
and uncompromising results.
This is the
only way to squeeze out the system of process and to replace it with the system
of results, and finally transition from “to be solving” to simply solve!
