Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko attends a joint news conference with European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker (unseen) at the EU Council in Brussels, Belgium, December 16, 2015. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir
Josh Cohen, Reuters: Corruption in Ukraine is so bad, a Nigerian prince would be embarrassed
United States Vice President Joe Biden has never been one to hold his tongue. He certainly didn’t in his recent trip to Kiev. In a speech before Ukraine’s Parliament, Biden told legislators that corruption was eating Ukraine “like a cancer,” and warned Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that Ukraine had “one more chance” to confront corruption before the United States cuts off aid.
Biden’s language was undiplomatic, but he’s right: Ukraine needs radical reforms to root out graft. After 18 months in power, Poroshenko still refuses to decisively confront corruption. It’s time for Poroshenko to either step up his fight against corruption — or step down if he won’t.
When it comes to Ukrainian corruption, the numbers speak for themselves. Over $12 billion per year disappears from the Ukrainian budget, according to an adviser to Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau. And in its most recent review of global graft, anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International ranked Ukraine 142 out of 174 countries on its Corruption Perceptions Index — below countries such as Uganda, Nicaragua and Nigeria. Ordinary Ukrainians also endure paying petty bribes in all areas of life. From vehicle registration, to getting their children into kindergarten, to obtaining needed medicine, everything connected to government has a price.
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WNU Editor: With all of this corruption (plus the imploding economy and the war in the east) it is not surprising that Ukraine President Poroshenko's poll numbers are now worst than his predecessor who had to flee the country during the height of the Maidan revolution in 2014 .... Another Regime Change "Success": Ukraine President Less Popular Than State Dept-Ousted Predecessor (Zero Hedge). As I have mentioned more than once .... the conditions to produce the last revolution are now back .... and in many cases far worst than what it was 2 years ago. All that it will take is a small spark to ignite the fire all over again.
Editor,
ReplyDeleteWe can say goodbye to the post-Soviet Ukraine.
It's the Balkans Part 2 but worse. Crazy Ukro-Nazi Gaus, and Gauleiter/Warlords, complete with tatooed, bad haircut militias. Broken, pilfered and dangerous (see: nuclear power plants) infrastructure. Large swathes of land under the sway of banditry, neo-feudalism and straight up anarchy with islands of secured neo-liberal profit extraction zones.
Corruption, gangsterism, backwardness, fascism/racism ignorance, extreme poverty and mass emigration could be the words on the new Ukrainian coat of arms.
Only in the east will a sense of order and decency remain.
Welcome to post-Communist Ukraine. Home of the new white trash of Europe.
It reminds me of a joke I heard from a Serbian friend.
Question: "What did capitalism do in one year that communism could not in seventy?"
Answer: "Make communism look good."