Volodymyr Groysman’s government marked their first 100 days in the office on July 23 by examining the results. During this time, the government has worked on transforming the energy sector, established economic prices on the natural gas market, and simplified the registration of medicine.
However, think
tank experts evaluated the government’s performance as below the average,
giving them only 4.6 points out of 10.
The analytics organization Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the think tank
Reanimation Package of Reforms conducted a poll among experts evaluating Groysman’s
government. Overall, the experts assessed that the new government’s performance
over the first 100 days was mediocre– the ministers got 4.6 points out of 10
points, while Groysman’s work was rated slightly better with 5.3 points.
Among the
achievements, the experts considered Groysman’s cooperation with President
Petro Poroshenko as the most successful issue (6.2 points). Also, the experts
evaluated the cooperation with international organizations and civil society at
approximately the same mediocre level as before, at around 5 points.
In
contrast, the appointment of new staff qualified as the biggest failure of this
government with 3.5 points. The
compromise of retaining the highly criticized head of the State Fiscal Service
Roman Nasirov was named as another defeat of the current government.
“Today, it
looks like the government works very weakly as a team,” Ihor Koliushko, a
co-chair of the Council of Reanimation Package of Reforms said at the 100 days
of government forum on July 21. According to him, the government wasn’t appointed
by the prime ministers and was “a compilation of different political party
interests.”
Privatization
reforms is another failure of the government. The Odesa Portside Plant was set
to be privatized on May 18 with the starting price for the stake $521 million.
“Our task
is to have the largest possible amount of participants,” Groysman said in his
statement on May 18. “We will begin this process of privatization, and must
demonstrate to Ukrainians and to the entire world, what open, public, and
effective privatization really is.”
However,
Groysman’s words haven’t come true as oligarchic-meddling led to an absence of bids. The State Property Fund declared the tender void on July 18.
In its
program for the year, the government promised to ensure a high standard of
living, to give the macroeconomic stability, fight against corruption, reform
the Fiscal Service, grant favorable conditions for business development, and
conduct decentralization. At its last government’s meeting on July 22, the
prime minister declared the launching of an online monitoring system for all
ministries to control their activity.
Some of the
ministries also reported specifically on their key achievements over last 100
days.
Reform of medicine
The Health
Ministry remains the only top institution without a head. After Georgian
Alexander Kvitashvili resigned as minister with Arseniy Yatsenyuk government,
the notoriously corrupt healthcare ministry continues without a leader.
In spite of
lacking a top official, the intuition appears to be able to adopt several
decisions. For instance, the ministry canceled repeated licensing for medicine
that is already licensed in the European Union and entrusted public procurement
to the international medical organizations.
“The prime
minister took personal responsibility for the (healthcare) sector, and when the
prime minister says something, something will eventually be done,” Koliushko
pointed to the positive side of not having a healthcare minister.
“This is a
litmus test, showing that if the (prime) minister doesn’t determine and support
key reforms, these reforms wouldn’t be implemented,” he added.
Meanwhile,
Ulyana Suprun, a volunteer and director of Patriot Defence initiative, was
appointed as a deputy health minister on July 22. American-Ukrainian, Suprun
worked as a volunteer in Ukraine since 2013, providing tactical medical
training to Ukrainian troops and leading the school of Medical Rehabilitation
at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv.
Infrastructure Ministry
In
Groysman’s government, Volodymyr Omelyan was promoted from his position as
deputy to the previous Infrastructure Minister Andriy Pivovarsky. Over his 100
days on the job, Omelyan has started reforming of the state governing body of
roads Ukravtodor. Groysman announced an increase in the cost of repairs from $4
to $19 billion.
The
Infrastructure Ministry introduced the system of the weight control for trucks
to prevent the destruction of roads by heavy vehicles. According to the new
measure, the weight of a vehicle shouldn’t exceed 40 tons.
Economic Development
In his 100
days’ report, the Minister of Economic Development Stepan Kubiv highlighted several newly adopted measures.
For
instance, Ukraine and Canada boosted their bilateral relationship through
signing the free trade agreement on July 11. After ratification, the agreement
is expected to help Ukrainian producers launch into the Northern American markets.
Also,
though introduced by ex-Minister Aivarus Abromavicius, Kubiv said that Prozorro,
the state procurement service, helped to save more than Hr 2 billion before it
officially launched on April 1. Plus,
Prozorro won a Public Sector Award at the international World Procurement
Awards.
