Billboards for the pro-president Party of Regions boast the country is now stable and that prosperity is within grasp.
Let’s not kid ourselves. What’s in store ahead is more public procurement corruption worth billions of dollars of taxpayer money. When the new parliament takes the oath on a Constitution misused shamelessly by both sides, they won’t have to publish which companies win bids on orders from state-run or managed companies and other government bodies. It’s taxpayer money.
By withholding information, those in power can steer government business to firms close to, or even owned by them, and the public will never know.
It’s just one example of the lack of access to public information in this nation. This newspaper has experience with ministries, government bodies and departments that have ignored official inquiries, queries and information requests.
The General Prosecutor’s Office in Ukraine is constantly tardy with responses. The capital’s Shevchenko District Court does not respond to inquiries for weeks, while the Health Ministry takes months or ignores queries altogether.
When responses do come in, they’re often incomplete and don’t address the questions asked. Many government press relation departments refuse to give information over the phone, although the law on public access to information stipulates this as one of many acceptable modes of conveying information. Oftentimes, only a facsimile transmitted information request is accepted, a willful denial of technological advances of the past 30 years.
This leads us to believe that President Viktor Yanukovych’s ruling party and civil servants don’t have any desire to serve the public. There are too many indicators pointing in the opposite direction – their pockets.
Until this nation’s leadership opens the books and records that belong to the public, the gap between political slogans and actions will be as wide and long as the Dnipro River.
