Editor’s Note: Every week Kyiv Post journalists pick a winner and loser in Ukraine’s drive to transform itself into a rule-of-law, European-style democracy.
Reformer of the week – Maksym Nefyodov
Maksym Nefyodov on July 5 became the head of the newly-created State Customs Service. The new agency had been separated from the State Fiscal Service.
Nefyodov said on July 18 that he wanted to get rid of officials who take bribes and who are involved into criminal schemes.
“I am ready to accept all the information regarding specific violations. I will be grateful for this and it will help in personnel decisions. You can even give it anonymously without any official forms and signatures,” said Nefyodov.
Moreover, he wants to change the customs code before the end of this year to create a single legal entity for customs and reduce the number of regional customs points from the current 26 to five or six.
Nefyodov served as a deputy economy minister from 2015 to 2019. He implemented the e-procurement system ProZorro, which is considered one of the most successful reforms for the past five years because it brought more transparency and competition to drive down the costs of public spending.
Anti-reformer of the week – Yuri Nedashkovsky
Yuri Nedashkovsky is the president of Energoatom, Ukraine’s state-owned national nuclear energy company. He is the captain at the helm of the nation’s nuclear ship, and if that vessel sinks, we will all know about it.
With 15 reactors generating 55 percent of the country’s electricity, Ukraine is the seventh-largest nuclear nation in the world today. But experts warn that ten of those reactors are currently operating beyond their safe lifespan, on the basis of 10-year extensions which are “deeply flawed.”
In addition, Ukraine scores poorly on a 2018 global nuclear security index, getting only 70 out of 100 points, ranking it 30th out of the 45 countries indexed.
The most recent overall safety assessment of all Ukrainian nuclear power plants by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, and the European Commission, found that Ukrainian plants were non-compliant with 22 out of 194 vital safety requirements.
And most recently, a controversial plan to upgrade the Khmelnytsky Nuclear Power Plant with two more reactors supplied by a cost-cutting, Kremlin-linked, Russian firm has raised serious questions of safety and security.
European and American experts are warning that the project needs to be seriously reassessed. So far, Nedashkovsky appears to have his hands firmly over his ears. Energoatom does a bad job communicating with civil society, the media and independent experts.
This is not good enough. Ukraine has spent three decades in the shadow of Chornobyl. It cannot afford to risk another such disaster, not even for limitless amounts of electricity.
For failing to overhaul and upgrade standards at Energoatom, for keeping the state-owned company firmly in the shadows and for pushing ahead with risky, badly planned projects like the upgrade at Khmelnytsky, Yuri Nedashkovsky is a Ukrainian anti-reformer.
