A very long time ago, medieval kings had designated days for petitioners. On these days, they would receive merchants and hear their requests and complaints.
Fast forward 500 years – and the ceremony is still in place in modern-day Ukraine.
The “merchants-come-to-the-king” vibe was tangible in the large meeting room of the Intercontinental Hotel on Dec. 1 in Kyiv, where President Petro Poroshenko, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman and government officials met with several hundred representatives of business.
At least that was the attitude from the president’s side: The almighty ruler graciously meets with his lieges.
The meeting, organized by the American Chamber of Commerce and European Business Association, meant to show that Poroshenko and the top government officials are listening to the business community’s needs.
However, all the listening was done by the business. The president and his people were the ones who were talking – mostly in long, self-absorbed, stultifying and occasionally stupifying monologues.
For all his English skills, Poroshenko doesn’t know the difference between monologue and dialogue?
His emcee for the event, Deputy Administration Dmytro Shymkiv, timed it perfectly to allow for no questions during the advertised noon to 3 p.m. event. But when people groaned and laughed when Shymkiv said he’s sorry there’s no time for questions, King Poroshenko deigned to answer three — lest the vassals complain.
The president so dominated the agenda that he almost completely avoided any unpleasant moments — and that one came during the brief Q & A period.
Viktor Berestenko, a deputy director general of the Association of International Forwarding Agents from Odesa, got in a question for Groysman. Berestenko said that the so-called AutoHub, a special part of the customs office in Odesa designated for imported cars, which Groysman pompously opened in September, is operating the same corrupt schemes like the old good customs office. Groysman in response urged the businesses to provide him with information about violations more often, but said nothing about the Odesa customs issue.
The one-sided format highlighted that something seemingly escapes from the president and his people: it is 2017, not 1517, and the president is not a king, but a temporary manager hired to lead the nation by performing certain tasks.
The people in the room knew it all right: After all, they hired many managers in their life. And it can’t escape from them that this particular manager is failing at his job and avoids speaking about it.
While Poroshenko spoke of important things like replacing the current corporate income tax with a dividends tax or cutting the law enforcers’ pressure on business, he completely left out the overarching issues: the top-level corruption and the war.
They aren’t exactly Poroshenko’s favorite topics. After all, he was elected president on the promise to destroy corruption and win the war with Russia within weeks.
Here are some questions that Poroshenko would hate to be asked by that audience – and that needed to be asked the most:
1. Why are you obstructing, or at least deliberately slowing down, the creation of the anti-corruption court, the must-have institution that would give the country a chance to finally see some top-level corruptionists convicted? Who are you trying to protect?
2. Why do the ears of your allies stick out of virtually every corruption scheme in this country?
3. We saw how powerful you can be when your ally Yuriy Lutsenko was made prosecutor general in just one day, with legislation being changed at a speed of light to fit him in. So why are you not executing the same power to fight corruption? There are only two options: You’re either powerless or in favor of corruption. Which one is that?
4. Why are you standing here bragging getting 1.8 billion euros in new macro-financial aid from the European Commission at the very same moment that the commission announced that Ukraine has lost the final 600 million euros from the previous batch of aid because of failing to live up to conditions for it.
5. Does your administration really control the National Agency for Preventing Corruption, which was supposed to be independent, as a whistleblower from the agency alleges?
But Poroshenko wasn’t in the mood for listening.
This became evident when Anna Derevyanko, the executive director of the 920-member European Business Association, took the stage to comment on some of the things that Poroshenko touched before.
“We don’t have a unanimous opinion about the replacement of the corporate tax – which is actually fine with us,” Derevyanko started, making Poroshenko frown. “We offer a compromise: to leave the corporate tax and introduce an exemption for reinvested profits.”
But Poroshenko cut her off.
“So what – you want to leave the old system and just get an exemption? This isn’t for me,” he said in a snuffy tone as if Derevyanko’s suggested something atrocious – while in fact, she spoke of a tax system existing in other countries.
Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk’s presentation of the corporate tax replacement was a rare voice of normality in the three-hour vanity fair, but one shouldn’t get used to it: The minister is under pressure and facing a smear campaign now.
Sources say that the reason for the pressure is the automatic system of value-added tax refunds that was introduced by the ministry. While it largely benefits businesses, it shuts the cash flows for those cheating with VAT.
It couldn’t escape the audience that American Chamber of Commerce president Andy Hunder, who represents more than 600 members, emphasized in his brief address that the VAT refund system works great and repeated several times that “it is important that things don’t go back.”
But the peak demonstration of misunderstanding between the president and the business community came when Derevyanko said that talent is leaving the country and asked the president, in a light friendly tone, “to do something to create the conditions for them to want to stay.”
But Poroshenko interrupted her and suggested, smiling, that the business should pay more to motivate people to stay in Ukraine.
“I think people want security,” Derevyanko suggested softly, only to be interrupted again.
“What do you want me to do – to build a wall on the border to make them stay?” Poroshenko said with a laugh, surprisingly triggering laughter from the audience too.
The wall wouldn’t be necessary, Mr. Poroshenko. Start with something easy: Stop sabotaging the war on corruption.
Oh, and here’s a crazy idea: When meeting with people, allow them to speak.
