A perspective on corruption in Ukraine. I am an academic economist, a former Ukrainian minister, and a public figure, in that order. I did a land market reform after 20 years of sabotage by vested interest. That experience helped me understand 1/
how corruption works in Ukraine and how one can fight it. Corruption is a culture problem. The culture of disregard for rules, zero respect for others, zero empathy, egoism, and belief that all other people are also corrupt, but they simple havent had the opportunity 2/
Corrupt people believe that they can bribe everyone else because everyone else is the same as they. When they meet honest people they consider them crazy or losers. When they get arrested and prosecuted, they are surprised and attribute it to some conspiracies or political 3/
enemies. They find it unfair! The Ukrainian public hate corrupt officials. This hate transpires across all areas of public life and office. The peak of the corruption happened around 2013 under the pro Russian president Yanukovich. His culture was that of a thug, 4/
the rule of the strong one rather than the rule of law or justice. That’s why people revolted and he was ousted. Russia took advantage of the situation and annexed Crimea and set up a “separatist” movement in the East of Ukraine. The Ukrainians then learned how 4/
incapable Ukrainian institutions had become under Yanukovich, with the army being unable to resist the Russian annexation and the security and police services being inept in resisting the Russians in the East. It is the Ukrainian public, the volunteers who took up arms 5/
to defend Ukraine in 2014-2016. It is them who now constitute the backbone of the Ukrainian military leadership. Today, the Ukrainian army is nothing like what it was in 2013. Today it defends Ukraine against one of the largest armies in the world - russia. 6/
And so the clean up of the corruption started in 2014. The Ukrainians realized that corruption is destroying the state and it must stop. There has been a lot of progress in some areas. The central bank has been reformed, half of the banks - about 100 - have been shut down 7/
Many of them were just fronts to steal money from the taxpayers through the fraudulent refinancing from the central bank. That was over. The state procurement has been reformed too. An electronic system has been introduced and it was heralded across the world as one of the most8/
advanced, transparent, and effective. I am proud I have participated in designing parts of it - the auction for selling assets of bankrupt banks. The patrol police has been changed from an extremely brutal and corrupt agency that instilled fear into everyone to a modern civil 9/
Service. Today, I am more afraid when I get pulled over in the US than in Ukraine. A framework of anti corruption agencies has been set up - a special court, an investigative bureau, a special prosecutor, a reporting agency. All of this has not been easy. There have 10/
been reversals, mixed results, challenges. But the trend is clear and the progress is steady. There is also a vibrant civil society and a good network of investigative journalists and a culture of whistleblowing. The competency of the anti corruption agencies and 11/
the civil society and investigative journalists has been improving. There are plenty of challenges and pockets of corruptions. First, the courts, especially at the lower level. Many judges are corrupt. The situation is improving but we have a long way to go. Corporate 12/
governance at the state owned enterprises continues to be an issue - a lot of work is ahead. Oligarchs still control many of the monopolies, so the competition authority reform needs to be done. Lobbying and political campaign donations have to be cleaned up and regulated. 13/
Media reform that balances the freedom of speech with the transparency of funding must be done too. Defense procurement (outside of weapons) is another not fully reformed area - and this is where the latest corruption scandal has happened. So, much work remains 14/
, but a lot has been done and achieved already. We must fight the culture of corruption and we must reform the way the political system is financed. But it can be done as the experience of the last 8 years shows. 15/15
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