June 8 could have become the turning point in Ukraine’s ill-fated fight with corruption.

After all, President Viktor Yanukovych publicly acknowledged that corruption annually costs the budget at least $2.5 billion in lost revenues. Additionally, nearly 15 percent of the budget – or $7.4 billion – gets stolen by state officials through shady public procurement procedures.

“In the last 15 months we have worked hard on corruption eradication,” Yanukovych said, in what was meant to be a sign of hope for Ukraine, one of Europe’s poorest nations but also home to some of the continent’s richest billionaires.

To eradicate corruption, Yanukovych should start with himself and his close allies.

For starters, it would be nice if Yanukovych and first Vice Prime Minister Andriy Kluyev, could comment on the investigative article published by the online Business New Europe publication.

The president shows no interest in investigating cases leading to his close allies, nor any interest in making government dealings more transparent and competitive.

The investigation shows that the same shell companies and intermediaries that have been used for importing flu vaccines by the Yulia Tymoshenko government are also used by the current government.

One of the cases involves allegations of an $150 million overpayment for purchase of an oil rig.

Yanukovych could also shed some light on the procurement deals involving DTEK Trading, owned by Ukraine’s richest individual Rinat Akhmetov, also his close ally and member of pro-presidential Party of Regions.

As Ukrainian Week reports, this year DTEK managed to win state coal supply tenders worth $1.4 billion. Akhmetov will supply coal to the very power companies he holds minority stakes in. It appears to be at least a conflict of interest.

This list could go on, casting serious doubts as to the sincerity of Yanukovych’s intentions.

His silence in regard to these and many other controversial deals, starting with the story of how he got to live in his luxurious Mezhyhirya residence, make it look like he is willing to ignore them completely.

The president shows no interest in investigating cases leading to his close allies, nor any interest in making government dealings more transparent and competitive.

The current people in power seem to see corruption everywhere – except where they should be seeing it, which in their own backyards. With this attitude, Yanukovych’s anti-corruption campaign will end up the same way as those of his predecessors — in failure.

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