Time flies when you put your heart and mind into something meaningful. My team at the Office of Simple Solutions & Results (OSSR) have been working tirelessly together President Volodymyr Zelensky, his office, members of the Ukrainian parliament and Cabinet of Ministers to implement long-overdue market reforms in Ukraine.

Thanks to valuable support of the business and other civil society stakeholders, we have been able to achieve astonishing results. Despite the doom and gloom of the pandemic, our small but reliable team has effectively started to break the vicious circle of bureaucracy, corruption, and lack of transparency in Ukraine.

In the past 365 days, we organised three meetings of the National Reforms Council during this year, and the proposed 12 reforms were approved by all NRC members. Additionally, even though OSSR is only a year old, we have gathered the biggest parliament inter-fractional group named by the NGO “Simple Solutions & Results” bringing together more than 80 members of parliament.

Currently, we are working on upholding 56 different reforms. Actions speak louder than words. We have got 25 draft laws registered in Verkhovna Rada, and 5 draft bills that we prepared have already been approved by parliament. All these achievements wouldn’t be possible without generous funding of major Ukrainian business associations and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

I would like to share some of our many legislative achievements with you to reassure you that the positive changes are on our doorstep.

Licensing of sailors

Until recently, the only way for sailors to prove qualifications (and re-confirm diplomas) was to take examinations (oral or written) at the State Qualification Commission (SCC), which used to entice corruption. Every sailor had to pay a 6-7 month salary to verify their certificate. Overall, we are talking about $120-150 million in corruption per year. Such financial losses on the side of sailors were completely unjustified, and in fact, they have to foot the bill for the flawed legislation.

We recognized the economic dangers of such a system and put together the necessary amendments to abolish it for good. Although we faced some resistance from vested interests in the political scene and court system, the draft law #3944 cancelling the licensing was eventually endorsed by Verkhovna Rada.

I would like to thank the ex-minister of infrastructure Minister Vladyslav Krykliy and current Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov for working hard on finding a feasible and efficient solution to the outlined problem. We also thank Verkhovna Rada speaker Dmytro Razumkov for ensuring both hearings of the law happen on the same day. We will continue to support this initiative and together with the Ministry of Digital Transformation will adjust all the processes to be transparent. Annually sailors are bringing $2-3 billion to the Ukrainian Economy so it is crucial to make it easier for them to work.

Construction barriers

Last year, a group of Ukrainian parliamentarians initiated a disastrous law that carried huge corruption risks in the construction field. However, we successfully stopped it. We have been working closely with the Minister of Regional Development Oleksiy Chernyshov on putting together a concept of the needed reform which was later presented at the NRC meeting, and then put into law. The draft law championed by a member of parliament, Olena Shuliak, and others registered has already been endorsed by the respective committee and will hopefully be soon passed by Verkhovna Rada.

Furthermore, we are actively supporting a new established governmental body of national architectural and urban planning (DIAM) which will replace the old one, and, as a result, a complete overhaul is expected. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Chernyshov for his enormous dedication to reform this corrupt field and his persistence in fighting for unpopular decisions.

Land reform

Another important win is the land reform to which we also contributed. We worked together with Minister Roman Leshchenko and head of parliament committee Mykola Solsky to open our land market and ensure that restrictions on purchasing agricultural lands are relieved. Throughout the process, we have faced many challenges and had to push against quite a few vested interests. However, our amendments were successfully endorsed at the NRC meeting, and then successfully voted in by Verkhovna Rada. By and large, this reform was launched in 2015 as part of the Odesa reforms package. The reform is instrumental to boosting Ukraine’s prosperity. I am truly grateful to Leshchenko and Solsky for their excellent job on bringing this reform to life.

Getting electricity

As of 2019, Ukraine ranks 128th out of 189 countries in the World Bank’s Doing Business ranking in terms of getting connections to electricity networks. We haven’t moved up since 2014 mainly due to the ignorance of previous Ukrainian governments. One of our top priorities in this field was to ensure that electricity services are provided in the shortest possible time and most conveniently and simply. Based on this concept, together with Head of the parliament committee Andriy Gerus and member of parliament Anatoliy Kostyukh we drafted a law that was registered by 101 members of parliament and was already supported by the majority in the first hearing. In the nearest future, we are hoping it will be fully voted in. The said draft law will change the procedure for getting and, critically, reduce it from 290 days to 97.

Subsoil use

We have liberalized the burdensome process for obtaining subsoil/mining permits. Currently, mining is carried out only on 35% of all explored deposits of industrial significance in Ukraine. The subsoil user’s path to the immediate start of mining is a complex and bureaucratic process that takes 1–2 years and involves obtaining several permits from 8 bodies. After the draft law has been endorsed in the second reading by Verkhovna Rada, it will take only 4-6 months to obtain those, as opposed to 2 years.

WatchDoc

Along with the legislative victories, we have also analysed 260 draft laws as part of our WatchDoc project to brief Ukrainian MPs about the costs and benefits of new legislation. As we look into the future, we hope to substantially multiply this number.

With the help of our international partners, in particular the US and German embassies, Watchdoc became a one of its kind think tank that plays a crucial role in driving major reforms forward. The key task of the WatchDoc team is to conduct an independent expert analysis of the proposed changes to the legislation in order to identify corruption and systemic risks. The activities of our group of experts are focused on the field of criminal justice: criminal proceedings, the fight against corruption, law enforcement, advocacy, prosecution, the penitentiary system, etc.

Bureaucracy challenge

Ukrainian bureaucracy is a greater threat to Ukraine than Vladimir Putin. Many of our reforms are being slowed down by bureaucracy. For example, our privatization law is stuck in the parliamentary committee. The car clearance reform is similarly being pushed back simply because ending a $300 million corruption scheme doesn’t play to the benefit of some government officials. The very same problem can be traced across the board, in particular in the field of education where a complete overhaul is required. But we will keep pushing through.

I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to chair the NRC Executive Committee and to lead OSSR. Ukraine is a rich and ambitious country and it deserves a bright and prosperous future. We have many ongoing reforms such as car clearance, customs, healthcare, education, and we hope that together with the help of the president and his team we will succeed in upholding these reforms as well as making sure that the mentioned ones are finalised. I am confident that we are best positioned to make Ukraine truly better.

Mikheil Saakashvili has been the chair of the executive committee of the National Reforms Council since May 7, 2020. He served as governor of Odesa Oblast from May 30, 2015, to Nov. 9, 2016. He was president of Georgia from Jan. 25, 2004, to Nov. 17, 2013.