When Ukraine’s parliament is in session, the adjacent parking lot resembles a car show for luxury cars.
The display
of status appears to ignore the fleet of 240 vehicles that parliament provides
to lawmakers for official use at a cost of $4.4 million to taxpayers.
“This
transport is normally used by lawmakers’ aides, or by their ‘entourage’ (people
who serve them),” said Andriy Pyshny a deputy from the Batkivshchyna opposition
faction, adding that he knew no parliament members without their own cars.
Pyshny has
been a longstanding critic of the numerous perks afforded to lawmakers and
claims he has refused some of them.
Some of
those include free travel using any mode of transportation, which will cost taxpayers
an additional $1.5 million in 2013. To avoid lines, they buy tickets at special
offices, use special VIP halls at airports and get to park everywhere for free.
Pyshny
calls these privileges “shameful.” But they are just part of the luxury package
of perks. The most important one is not strictly financial – it’s immunity from
criminal prosecution unless their fellow lawmakers strip them of that status.
Although
lawmakers often call themselves “public servants,” the laws they pass separate
them from the people they are supposed to serve.
The state
provides parliamentary members with free healthcare at the VIP Feofania clinic,
free trips to seaside resorts in Crimea and free lodging in select Kyiv hotels.
Or they are reimbursed for their housing needs.
Lawmakers
can also use hotel rooms to store their luggage free of charge, as Valeriy Lukianov
of the ruling Party of Regions once confessed to Focus magazine. This perk only
at the Kyiv Hotel costs public coffers $3 million, according to Valentyn Zaichuk,
head of the administrative department of parliament.
The 2013
budget allocated $2 million for “financial assistance for health improvement”
of lawmakers, the amount they spend during their allotted 45 days of paid
vacation.
Rostyslav
Pavlenko, a lawmaker from the opposition Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reforms
(UDAR) party, said the state should adopt a per-diem limit to lawmakers directly.
Their
salaries are also much higher than the average wage in Ukraine. Zaichuk said
deputies make Hr 17,425 (over $2,000) a month. The average national wage $375.
Former
lawmakers draw salaries for two years after their terms expire and, if they don’t
find another job, the state pays them 50 percent of their salary for life.
Pyshny said
that 151 ex-lawmakers applied for these unemployment benefits in 2013, which
will cost the budget some $5 million.
Before the
October 2012 parliamentary elections, lawmakers abolished these unemployment
payments for their ex-colleagues, but this norm was restored again in 2013,
Pyshny said, adding that he registered a draft law to remove it again.
That’s not
all.
And when a
lawmaker retires, they get a lump sum payment equal to one-year’s salary. In
addition, former speakers of parliament get lifetime uses of state summer
houses, free medication and pensions at 70 percent of their salaries, thanks to
a Soviet-era ruling passed by the presidium of the Verkhovna Rada of the
Ukrainian Soviet Republic back in 1990.
Viktor
Taran, analytical department chief at Chesno civil movement, said that most lawmaker
privileges are really “far-fetched.”
Pyshny said
he was shocked to know that lawmakers received in the beginning of the session
huge manuals called Administrative and Territorial Structure of Ukraine containing
information easily available on the internet, whose cost exceeded $32,500.
Pavlenko,
just like Pyshny, said the UDAR party has drafted a bill that filters out a
number of “illogical and obsolete” privileges. Both lawmakers recently hailed a
joint bill that was submitted to parliament by the three opposition leaders,
which makes lawmaker pensions, health and other benefits equal to the level
enjoyed by average citizens. Pyshny said this law may “fundamentally change the
system of privileges in Ukraine.”
Volodymyr
Makeyenko of the ruling Regions Party agreed that some lawmaker privileges have
to be removed.
But Taran
of the Chesno initiative said he didn’t believe either the pro-government party
or the opposition will change.
“I remember
the talks about the need to remove these privileges since the first parliament
session of independent Ukraine, but this issue never reached further than just
a discussion,” he said. “Every lawmaker before pressing the voting button will consider
that this issue relates to his personal comfort.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be
reached at [email protected]
