Editor’s Note: The Kyiv Post tracks the progress made by Ukraine’s post-EuroMaidan Revolution leaders in making structural changes in the public interest in a broad range of areas, from the defense and energy sectors, to taxation and pensions. Below are the main issues in focus from Jan. 26 to Feb. 2.
Summary
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was in Davos, Switzerland Jan. 25-26 to attend the World Economic Forum, and annual pow-wow of business and political leaders, economists, celebrities and journalists.
There, Poroshenko talked up his credentials as a reformer, pointing to Ukraine’s rise in the World Bank’s Doing Business ranking. He also said that under his presidency, 3G cellphone services – for years blocked by corruption – had finally been introduced, and that 4G services would be introduced soon. He added that while he had been in Davos the representatives of over 80 companies had requested meetings with him regarding investments.
“This is an important message – please, do not waste time waiting for June-July-August or autumn,” Poroshenko said at the Ukraine House Davos, an events hub on the sidelines of the forum showcasing Ukraine.
“This is the right time and place to be – here today in the Ukraine House Davos. We are waiting for you, for investors.”
However, Poroshenko’s rosy rhetoric in Switzerland has not been matched by his actions in Ukraine of late: The president has been foot-dragging on the setting up of an independent anti-corruption court for months, and when he finally submitted a bill on it in December the draft legislation was slammed by both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as not being up to scratch. Specifically, the two international lenders – who provided vital stabilization loans to Ukraine in the wake of the EuroMaidan Revolution and the launch of Russia’s war on Ukraine in the Donbas in 2014 – fear that Poroshenko’s bill will not guarantee the independence of the court.
Poroshenko has also come into criticism in the wake of a slew of cases being opened against anti-corruption activists and even the head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine – an independent agency set up to investigate top-level corruption. Critics say that far from being a champion of reform, Poroshenko is now trying to roll back the modest gains that have been made in combatting corruption in Ukraine since he came to power in May 2014.
Defense
Ukraine is already testing the effectiveness of the reforms of the Defense Ministry on the battlefield, Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak said on Jan. 31. Speaking at the George C. Marshall European Centre for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, Poltorak delivered a speech on the achievements and challenges of the defense reform in Ukraine.
“I would like to underscore the coordinated work of all government bodies of Ukraine in issues related to defense reform,” Poltorak said. “We’re testing the effectiveness of reforms in eastern Ukraine, and I mean planning, logistics, and manning tasks. We’ve have successes and challenges, but much has been achieved.”
Fiscal
The State Fiscal Service remains one of the most corrupt bodies in Ukraine, second only to the Ukrainian courts, and is in urgent need of reform, Finance Minister of Ukraine Oleksandr Danylyuk wrote on his Facebook page on Jan. 30.
Quoting the results of the annual Corruption Perception Survey, conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce, Danylyuk said reform was needed to ensure there was real improvement in the business climate and growth of the economy.
According to the Corruption Perception Survey, after the courts and the he courts tax and customs authorities, respondents saw local government authorities as being the most corrupt.
Previously, Danylyuk complained that the Cabinet had in the first half of January, while he was on a working trip to the United States, blocked a plan to reform the State Fiscal Service.
Decentralization
A nationwide poll of Ukraine by the International Republican Institute’s (IRI) Center for Insights in Survey Research indicates relatively high public satisfaction with the course of decentralization reform in Ukraine.
The poll was conducted throughout Ukraine (except for the occupied territories of Crimea and Donbas) from Nov. 15 to Dec. 14 through face-to-face interviews at respondents’ homes. It featured the final installment in a series of oversamples of the cities of Dnipro, Khmelnytsky, Mariupol and Mykolaiv.
According to the results of the poll, the public are much more likely to believe that things are going in the right direction at the local level than at the national.
“The considerably higher levels of optimism on the local level indicate that decentralization reforms are causing citizens to feel more empowered and satisfied with their local governments,” said IRI Regional Director for Eurasia Stephen Nix.
“This sends an important signal to the government that decentralization should continue, and gives reason to hope that the positive consequences of these reforms will eventually filter up to the national level.”
For the oversample, 4,800 respondents were surveyed – 1,200 in each of the four cities. The survey was financed by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
The decentralization of Ukraine’s system of government brings more decision-making and spending powers to local authorities, and has created a new tier of local government called hromadas, or communities, made up of groups of settlements.
Health
The stage was set for the implementation of Ukraine’s new healthcare system on Jan. 30, when the law on state financial guarantees for medical services to the public came into force, the Health Ministry said on Feb. 1.
“Now there are legitimate reasons to make a series of decisions to ensure the timely implementation of the previously announced plan for reforming the primary health care sector,” the ministry said in an announcement.
The ministry said the first step would be to create the National Health Service of Ukraine (NHSU) – a national insurer, which will sign contracts with healthcare institutions and buy public healthcare services from them. A competition will be held to select the head of the NHSU and two deputies, and the service will start working in July.
Ukrainians will start choosing primary care physicians (family doctors, therapists, or pediatricians) and sign declarations with them from April.
