R.I.P. Reforms

Sunday before last was the anniversary of the announcement of the so-called October course of radical economic reforms.

What was announced four years ago actually did have the right slogans and was related to the actual social and economic changes taking place in the country. However, all eight directions of changes, which were met with applause back then, remained mere words and had no practical content.

Already by 1995 it became clear that the President was not working on the economic sphere and probably never would. The President’s economic retinue failed to achieve any positive changes. It is no secret that the present government has nothing to be proud of in the economic sphere. The only achievement there under the current President, stability of the national currency, was ruined by this summer’s financial crisis. It can be easily explained with the Asian financial crisis, and this gives the top executives of the country a sort of excuse for doing nothing. It is related both to the time when the national financial pyramid was created and to the beginning of the crisis this August. Actually, the government did nothing but watch the development of the situation in Russia and malevolently reporting that “the national currency in Ukraine dropped only 35% and not 150%, as in Russia.” Such a limited approach also characterizes its understanding of economic sphere as it is. The fall was more considerable for Russia, because it had somewhere to fall. Ukraine, which is considerably lower and deeper, simply never tasted the pleasure of normal life.

The place and role of Ukraine in the world are obviously hardly visible. The country, situated in Europe, fails to play any noticeable role in the region and in the world due to its economic flaws. Its ratings for competitiveness, economic freedom, combating corruption, and other indexes are so low that I simply do not want to cite them here.

The ineffectiveness of the President’s economic advisers showed itself not only in the absence of actual economic changes, but also in absence of elementary consistency in understanding economic processes. If the whole activity of the current presidential adviser on economics was connected with propagating of strict principles of domestic monetarism, then early this month one weekly published his article, in which he stated that the “local state officials demonstrated their special dedication to the pure idea of monetarism.” This was not said in the context of self-criticism. Even during developed socialism, state executives were ashamed of calling black white so openly.

The disastrous drop in popular living standards and total despair of many people are the most brilliant results of this course of radical economic reforms. As an example we can take the system of price-formation for medications for the poorer walks of life, stability of extremely small pensions, and prices increases, because imported ingredients rose in price, and many other things. Moreover, taking our national specifics into account, the population rises up, gets angry and expects nothing from the present government.

It is practically unrealistic to predict positive changes of living standards by the upcoming presidential elections under current conditions. Even if the miracle happens and the state manages to pay off its wage and other social payment arrears, the voters will never forget about the “beauty” of the radical course of economic reforms. And it would be totally incredible to predict the sincere support of the President by voters.

This way the anniversary may be considered a memorial day for the reforms that failed to happen in Ukraine. It draws a symbolic line under the economic activity of current administration, and also characterizes its obviously inescapable perspectives.