Editor's note: This article was updated to include comments provided by Kyiv city administration adviser William Schreiber.
The U.S. Agency for International Development is starting a $1 million corruption-fighting program with the city of Kyiv, according to a statement published late on April 27 on the Kyiv City State Administration website.
The
announcement followed a meeting in Washington, D.C. between Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy
Klitschko and Alfonso Lenhardt, deputy administrator and acting administrator
of USAID.
According
to the statement, the program will focus on improving the capital’s public
procurement system, waste management, parking infrastructure, and investment
systems. Better access to the Kyiv subway system for people living with
disabilities is another program area.
The
programs are scheduled to start after the May holidays, according to American
citizen William Schreiber, who advises the Kyiv city administration.
“They are
expected to take about 2-3 months,” Schreiber said in an emailed response to the Kyiv Post. “The
exception is the online city tender system, which was already working.”
He said that
purchase orders handled in at least 14 city agencies are currently selected
through an online and automated system, avoiding overpayments on a wide variety
of purchases.
“The
system was adopted from Georgia with the help of civil society organizations
like Transparency International and Nova Kraina. USAID is helping us audit the
system and provide a business intelligence module,” Schreiber said, estimating that
the project could save the city some Hr 210 million next year.
Another
sensitive issue is to improve parking in Kyiv.
Schreiber
says that with the help of USAID they will design new investment projects, for
example for parking meters or garages and also provide legal advice on how to
enforce parking rules.
Klitschko,
according to Schreiber, also asked for a strategy on waste management.
“If we
conceptualize trash not as a liability, but a strategic fuel, our experts say
up to 80 percent of the city could be heated with garbage,” Schreiber says. He
recalls that Klitschko became a convert to the idea of waste to energy when he
lived in Hamburg in the late 1990s.
“There he
lived only two blocks away from an incinerator – but he had no idea what the
building was for almost a year,” Schreiber said. “Unfortunately, Kyiv residents
living near the Energiya incinerator (the only
one in Kyiv located in the eastern part of the city) have no such doubts.
Filters and more efficient boilers should be installed.”
USAID will
also help Kyiv to set up a watchdog – an investment oversight council to ensure
that the city’s projects are properly tendered. In Washington, D.C. Lenhardt
said they will also develop mechanisms of public control, transparency and
accountability at the Kyiv Investment Agency, which should limit risks and
opportunities for corruption.
During the
meeting with Klitschko, Lenhardt said that USAID totally supports Klitschko’s
actions “aimed to make the work of the Kyiv City State Administration more
transparent and ensure accountability to Kyiv citizens,” reads the statement.
As part of
a five-day visit to America, Klitschko also met with U.S. Vice President Joe
Biden on April 27, in Washington, D.C. where they discussed efforts to reduce
corruption in the city’s budget and public procurement.
Biden also
told Klitschko that improving transparency and ending corruption would be an
important measure of progress in Ukraine, which was ranked 142 out of 175
countries, according to Transparency International’s latest corruption index.
Besides
transparency issues, Klitschko and Lenhardt also spoke of the problems that
internally displaced people face. The U.N. estimated the number of refugees at
around 1,236,495 people as of the end of April. The USAID will also help to
create the center to support refugees and will coordinate actions on providing
humanitarian aid with the Kyiv city authorities.
The
agency’s budget for the 2015 fiscal year is $20.1 billion and $22 billion for
the following year.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected].
