Editor’s Note: The Kyiv Post is tracking progress made in six key areas: economy & finance, security & defense, energy, rule of law, public administration and agriculture.
Those who sell faulty equipment to soldiers could go to prison; Yatsenyuk’s wife gets traffic-violation ticket from ‘new’ police
Parliament passed on Jan. 26 a bill envisaging criminal responsibility for delivery of defective or broken military equipment to the army. Guilty parties could face five to eight years in jail for supplying defective equipment. Lawmaker Anton Herashchenko wrote on Facebook: “If as a result of broken armored vehicles some soldiers are killed or wounded… then the prison term may reach up to 10 years in jail.”
The Ukrainian military is also planning to acquire two to four submarines by 2020, Serhiy Hayduk, head of the Navy, said in an interview with Defense Express. Ukraine had one submarine until Russian troops annexed Crimea and seized it in 2014.
In other military affairs, representatives of the armed forces and experts held a meeting on Jan. 26 on switching to NATO standards. Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak said on Jan. 21 that the overhaul would be launched in February and would continue until 2020.
Vetting for police officers was launched in Khmelnytsky Oblast, the first time it has taken place outside of Kyiv.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s wife Terezia was fined by police for a traffic violation on Jan. 27, according to the Ukrinform news agency. The move was hailed by some as evidence of the traffic police’s independence, while others dismissed it as a PR stunt by Yatsenyuk’s team to hype police reform.
– Oleg Sukhov
and Oksana Grytsenko
Radical Party leader Oleh Lyashko speaks in parliament on Dec. 17. (Anastasia Vlasova)
Parliament postpones decentralization
Parliament lacks 300 votes to pass changes to the Constitution necessary for political decentralization, required for Russian-occupied areas of the Donbas as part of the Minsk peace agreements.
So lawmakers changed their voting procedure on Jan. 28 to allow a vote in their next session.
The factions of Samopomich and Radical Party refused to vote because the constitutional changes include a line about a “special way of local governance” in parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
Ivan Lukerya, an expert of the Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research, said successful decentralization requires several legal changes. “But the constitutional changes would make this reform irreversible,” Lukerya said.
– Oksana Grytsenko
Lawmaker Yuriy Lutsenko (center, glasses), head of President Petro Poroshenko’s parliamentary faction, speaks to a colleague on Jan. 28 in the legislative chamber. (Ukrafoto)
Lawmakers move slowly on courts; 45 corruption probes open
The Verkhovna Rada on Jan. 28 sent to the Constitutional Court a bill on reforming the court system. To become law, the legislation must be upheld by the court and approved by parliament and the president.
The bill would reduce parliament’s political influence on courts since the Verkhovna Rada would be stripped of its right to appoint judges. But a major concern is that the president will keep major influence over the court system, which is at odds with recommendations by the Venice Commission.
The bill also introduces vetting, which would allow the High Council of Justice to fire judges for unprofessionalism and violations of the law. However, critics say that Ukraine’s notoriously corrupt and politicized court system will remain mostly unchanged because the bill does not stipulate automatically replacing judges through a transparent hiring process.
“It’s like vetting the old traffic police and then letting the same people to patrol the roads,” Tetiana Kozachenko, a critic of the legislation and head of the Justice Ministry’s lustration department, told the Kyiv Post.
The bill also seeks to partially lift judges’ immunity from prosecution.
Another controversy concerns parliament’s failure on Jan. 26 to include in its agenda a bill speeding up the introduction of electronic property declarations for officials seven times in a row. The bill, which is part of the requirements for a visa-free regime with the EU, would cancel the delay in introducing electronic declarations until 2017.
On the bright side, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau has opened a total of 45 criminal cases since it became fully operational last November.
One of the cases is against ex-Ecology Minister Serhiy Kurykin, who was fired on Jan. 27. His dismissal followed an internal investigation of alleged fraud schemes that might have cost millions of dollars to Ukraine’s state budget.
Under the schemes, Donetsk-based company Agrotekhbud won a contract to sell $22 million worth of light-emitting diode lamps to the government, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said on Jan. 27. He described Agrotekhbud as a “fake company.”
– Oleg Sukhov and Alyona Zhuk
Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko speaks at an American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine forum on Jan. 28 in Kyiv. (Volodymyr Petrov)
Jaresko vows State Fiscal Service overhaul to restore faith in customs, tax services
Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko said an overhaul of the State Fiscal Service as government’s priority for 2016. In particular, she mentioned the need for changes in tax collection and customs.
On Jan. 26, Jaresko also proposed declaring companies as “authorized economic operators” to simplified customs clearance on imports.
The Finance Ministry is also looking at outsourcing customs functions to private companies.
But Viktor Berestenko, deputy CEO of the Association of International Freight Forwarders of Ukraine, said that he thinks tax dodgers can get around the international companies at other crossing points not under their jurisdiction.
Corruption among current state custom officers is one reason why changes need to be made. But Berestenko said that “putting the customs offices under the administration of foreign companies will lead to nothing but additional expenses. Only implementation of international software at customs which minimizes the human factor can yield results. Now the government is just simulating active work.”
In another development, parliament on Jan. 26 eased anti-monopoly laws in an attempt to encourage investment and ease the regulatory burden on smaller companies.
If the president signs the law, only foreign companies with more than 30 million euros in assets and annual turnover will need to obtain permits. Currently the threshold is 12 million euros. The value of acquired assets in Ukraine subject to investigation will increase from 1 million to 4 million euros.
“We hope for further innovations which will reduce the paperwork needed for the anti-monopoly investigation and make it faster, but increasing the threshold makes work much easier, “ said Nickolas Likhachov of Spenser & Kauffmann law firm.
