Our leaders want to invite foreigners into the Cabinet...

The parliament will vote for a new Cabinet on December 2, speaker of the newly elected Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Hroisman said on November 27. “I       urge you to vote for the new Cabinet and its manifesto during the meeting to be held on December 2,” he told the MPs.

Identity of the new prime minister had been tentatively known for a long time, and the position went, as expected, to Arsenii Yatseniuk. “I proposed his candidacy on the first day [after the election results were announced. – Author],” President Petro Poroshenko stated, and immediately submitted it to the Rada. “I thank my bloc’s faction for its support. I and Yatseniuk have learned the lessons of recent history well.”

When instructing the MPs and the new prime minister on the path ahead, Poroshenko made it very clear that the most urgent economic reform should be the war on corruption. “I pledge to work on everything you have just proposed. This is our common responsibility,” Yatseniuk summed up in response, following the president’s speech and subsequent almost unanimous parliamentary vote on his appointment to the position of prime minister.

No candidates for the new Cabinet’s portfolios were announced from the parliamentary rostrum on that day. However, The Day’s sources in the coalition state that the Ministry of Economy portfolio is being prepared for the current deputy head for reforms at the Presidential Administration Dmytro Shymkiv, Ministry of Finance will be headed by Oshchadbank’s chief executive Andrii Pyshny or Viktor Pynzenyk, Ministry of Agriculture and Food will go to president of the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club Association Alex Lissitsa, Serhii Yermilov will lead the Ministry of Fuel and Energy, while Samopomich MP Ivan Miroshnychenko is slated to get the portfolio of deputy prime minister for agriculture. Poroshenko added that he would initiate legislative changes allowing the government to invite a foreigner to head the Anti-Corruption Bureau, and possibly more foreigners into the Cabinet. With this in mind, he proposes to expand the categories of foreigners who the president may grant citizenship to. According to The Day, a foreigner may be appointed to the position of deputy prime minister for European integration and economic reforms as well. However, there is no agreement on the exact name of this position, and leaders are silent on the candidates for it, too.

Will foreigners accelerate reforms in Ukraine? The Day put this question to head of the Committee of Ukrainian Economists Andrii NOVAK:

“On the one hand, the initiative to invite foreigners to the  Cabinet is recognition of Ukraine’s alleged lack of home-grown efficient officials. On the other hand, there is currently no other mechanism to break the corrupt system, so inviting law-abiding people from the outside looks like the only way ahead. Unfortunately, such specialists are scarce, almost non-existent among Ukrainian politicians. Therefore, it is appropriate to invite qualified experts from developed countries who abhor corruption and criminal scheming to the bodies tasked with actually fighting corruption. We should not be too excited about them, because not all foreigners are alike. Therefore, the great credit of trust that they will be afforded on their appointment to these positions should be complemented with a system for monitoring their activities. The main task for the Cabinet is to change the inefficient economic system, and to do this, they will need, firstly, to change the governance system, starting with the Cabinet itself, secondly, to modernize the economic rules of the game, and thirdly, to launch a real war on corruption.”