There has been no permanent appointment to the post for seven months now, since parliament accepted the resignation of Ihor Shevchenko.
Shevchenko’s (acting minster) replacement, Serhiy Kurik, was fired on Jan. 26 after being accused by Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk of embezzling Hr 550 million. The post is now held on an acting basis by Hanna Vronska.
The post has attracted so much controversy because it has proved to be a microcosm of Ukraine’s corrupt government apparatus. Officials like Mykola Zlochevsky, the ecology minister under ousted former President Viktor Yanukovych, have long used it as a means for illicit enrichment.
Zlochevsky allegedly abused his power by granting extraction licenses to his own gas producing company, Burisma Holding. This company accounted for one third of Ukraine’s total private production volume last year.
Zlochevsky was investigated by the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales last year for abuse of office. But the case collapsed and his bank account, holding $23 million, was unfrozen in July because Ukraine’s authorities failed to cooperate with U.K. investigators. On Jan. 31, Kyiv’s Pechersk District Court also unfroze Zlochevsky’s assets.
The former environmental official has two large dachas, two land plots, two homes (922 square meters and 300 square meters in area respectively), and a Rolls-Royce Phantom. He’s hardly a sandal-wearing, tree-hugging environmentalist.
But that’s the kind of person who should be in the post – not a venal, cash-hungry businessman whose only concern for the environment is how much wealth he can wring out of it.
Ukraine needs a reformist ecology minister badly. For more than seven months, business as usual has gone on in an extremely corrupt ministry.
Getting a reformist in the post would not only help clean up the environment, but also put a stop to the disgraceful abuses in a ministry that is supposed to make Ukraine a better place to live.
