Ukrainian MP Zheleznyak on why Zelenskyy must veto controversial e-declaration bill – interview

Yaroslav Zheleznyak, Ukrainian MP and First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Finance Committee, explained in an interview with NV Radio on Sept. 7 why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy must veto the controversial bill on online asset declarations for officials.

NV: While we were running ads, another 100 signatures were added [to the petition to veto the bill]. Have you ever seen petitions gain votes this quickly?

Zheleznyak: No, this is a record. We gained 25,000 signatures in just two hours yesterday. It’s very surprising, about 8,000 or 9,000 signatures were added overnight. There are currently 59,284 votes. Yesterday, as of 1 p.m., this petition was so actively promoted that a server in the President’s Office went down, and they had to fix it.

NV: Do you have an explanation why your colleagues in the parliament didn’t want to vote for the amendment on the immediate disclosure of the declarations register?

Zheleznyak: Probably, I have. Honestly, it consists of a quite abstract explanation that there is collective irresponsibility. You know the phrase “just to spite grandma, I’ll freeze my ears off.” It was almost the same. I won’t say there was a specific person or group of people, some group of [Ukrainian businessmen Ihor] Kolomoisky, [Illia] Pavlyuk, or [Rinat] Akhmetov, who directly actively worked in the parliament to prevent [the amendment from being passed]. Everyone knew about this amendment, everyone posted it, discussed, to be honest, there is no logic in closing the declarations down for a year.

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Even for MPs who don’t want to show their wealth, how many days do you think after the law with closed declarations comes into force, you, dear media and activists, will dust off a MP who won’t open his declaration on his own?

Why didn’t they vote? I think it was against some logic. I immediately warned all my colleagues that the IMF will not accept the bill as is. Therefore, it’s obvious that the president will use his veto. And the petition, let’s be honest, is a flimsy tool in terms of effectiveness, but the very fact of such speed, such a number of signatures shows two things.

The first is that no one likes the lawmakers, which is quite obvious, and the second is a huge public demand that the president make the only correct decision, namely veto this bill No. 9534 with technical proposals. And there is another bill on amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses on liability for mistakes or false data in declarations. I think it should also be vetoed.

NV: Do you think the president will definitely impose a veto on this bill?

Zheleznyak: I think he doesn’t have many other chances to do something. It would be strange for me [if he doesn’t]. Explain the logic to me, you are the president of the country, there is a problem with constant corruption scandals. Once again, you will be well and truly beaten by all media if you choose to sign it into law. What is the point for you as the president, as the political leader of the country, to cover up some no-name lawmakers who don’t want to show their wealth or where their children are abroad or something else? Just what’s the point? How quickly do you think someone will accidentally leak all these closed declarations to the media?

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I bet it won’t last a month. There is no logic for the president to take this negativity. It’s nonsense. And in principle, there was no logic in not voting for this amendment. Once again, I haven’t heard a single argument from the non-voters that would convince me. All didn’t vote either because they stepped out during that time, unfortunately, there are also such examples, particularly among well-known legislators. True, I don’t see any malicious intent, they should have sat and voted, but probably, if they were in the [parliamentary] session hall, they would have voted.

NV: Recently, media reports about Ukrainian corruption have become more frequent, and the Lithuanian president’s statement caused a splash. He said that corruption in Ukraine has a significant influence on Western countries when making decisions on the supply of weapons to Kyiv. Would we really have more weapons if we had less corruption?

Zheleznyak: I don’t think it’s a direct correlation. But of course, in a country where there is no corruption, which is trusted and where there is no risk that you have helped at the expense of taxpayers of the United States, the European Union, Japan, the United Kingdom, other such countries, that tomorrow you won’t see the headline of The Economist, The Telegraph, The Washington Post about another military procurement scandal.

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Therefore, of course, if you are a politician, for example, the president of the United States, the prime minister of Japan, or the United Kingdom, you will make decisions much faster about any assistance, both financial and military, if the risk of corruption scandals is almost zero. When I meet with various representatives of the G7 embassies as the head of the temporary investigative commission for financial crimes, I tell them a very simple phrase: do something about the law enforcement system.

The Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine (ESB), the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), the SBU security service, etc. Because if you don’t do it, now they’re stealing our money, and in a few months, there will be the first corruption scandal with your money, your taxpayers’ money. And then it will be a general problem both for Ukraine, which risks losing part of its support, and for you since you will have a political scandal.

What is the institutional problem? Foreign money comes in, which bodies should monitor this money? The first is the ESB. The Accounting Chamber, which has been without a head for six months or so, is understaffed, and yesterday the parliament again failed the competition for the appointment of new members. The State Audit Service of Ukraine, is also, to put it mildly, sub-par.

The Antimonopoly Committee, yesterday [the parliament] voted for Pavlo Kyrylenko as its new head. He is a military man, a former prosecutor, how does he relate to the Antimonopoly Committee besides the fact that he’s a person from the President’s Office? I hardly understand this.

All these should be institutions that control the distribution of foreign money, so that there is no scandal that appears in our headlines, automatically appears in foreign media headlines, and then turns into a political crisis.

Your colleagues, including the editor-in-chief of The Economist, have recently come to me and conducted an investigation into these Defense Ministry’s winter jackets, in particular, on the materials of the work of our temporary investigative commission, and the publication of Mr. Yuriy Nikolov. It’s difficult to comment to the foreign press. We tried to somehow explain that there was a scandal, but everything has been fixed, there will be a new system, that minister has been dismissed and another one will be appointed, and Rustem Umerov was yet to be appointed at that time.

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And here is Arsen Zhumadilov. This becomes a problem. There is an indirect correlation here, but it’s obvious. And as far as I know, our international partners directly signal to the President’s Office and the president not only the problem’s systemic nature, but also the fact that each corruption problem somehow leads to a small list of names and they are all known. That is, our problem has a name and a surname.

And finally, they, like us, want to see some adequate reaction to corruption scandals. There was a story about eggs for UAH 17, everyone was silent until it became a problem. The jacket story appeared, they were also silent, trying to smother up the scandal until it became a problem. Bihus.Info journalists released an investigation into the deputy head of the President’s Office, Rostyslav Shurma, and his brother’s solar power plants in the occupied territories. He was silent for 17 days, but then, it would be better for him to remain silent, he appeared and said in particular on your broadcast that it was a hit piece by oligarchs or reptilians, to be honest, I didn’t understand this nonsense.

The unified state automated passport system (EDAPS), the purchases by [nuclear operator] Energoatom. I can remember these corruption scandals. Reconstruction in Kyiv Oblast, which was released recently. All these scandals are connected by a series of sequences. There is a scandal, we as a society are indignant, we as politicians are also indignant, but there is no reaction, absolutely none.

Rostyslav still talks about [restoration], that they’re rebuilding the region, while the Polygraph Combine Ukraine and EDAPS continue to cooperate well. And Energoatom also constantly makes purchases with the same network. This becomes a problem, because foreigners see it, make certain decisions, in particular those that will affect Ukraine’s personnel policy.

NV: Regarding Ukraine’s personnel policy, you mentioned the appointment of the new Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, and what is interesting is that to appoint him to this position, it was necessary to find someone to head the State Property Fund.

It’s still not clear whether Olha Pishchanska, who headed the Antimonopoly Committee, has agreed to this. Finally, Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko was appointed the head of the Antimonopoly Committee. How do you explain such a simultaneous reshuffle of heads of departments?

Zheleznyak: I explain this by the fact that we lack some logic in personnel policy. Let’s discuss the issue of the defense minister separately. I really believe that Rustem Umerov is an ideal candidate for the defense minister, not because he is my former colleague and we have really quite good personal relations. But Rustem is one of the strongest negotiators and definitely a good manager.

We have a slightly distorted view of this term [‘good manager’], but during the year of working at the State Property Fund, with 1,200 enterprises and where the situation was simply terrible, he showed excellent results and no corruption scandals. Two ideal components for a defense minister. It was necessary to replace [former Defense Minister Oleksii] Reznikov as it was already difficult to work with the Defense Ministry’s reputation.

Regarding the State Property Fund. I don’t consider Olha Pishchanska, who is a lawyer, and to be honest, I didn’t see her great economic work at the Antimonopoly Committee, a person who will cope with the challenges facing the State Property Fund. And this is to manage 1,200 enterprises, to continue privatization, and to properly manage the land that was involved in the National Academy of Sciences’ corruption schemes.

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To launch a sovereign fund, manage the sale of seized Russian assets. To put it mildly, nothing in her biography so far suggests that she will be up to these challenges. And the fact that she somehow knows the families of top politicians, I’m sorry, this is not a profession. I’m glad that they have good human relations but it’s possible not to transfer them to state relations.

I asked Olha a direct question during her dismissal whether it’s true that she was offered this position and whether she accepted it. She basically “pivoted.” She told a lot of different things but didn’t explain to me why she was leaving the Antimonopoly Committee. Accordingly, we know that it was simply necessary to put another person there.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, I heard a lot of positive things about him as a military man. But, I’m sorry, this does not make a person an ideal candidate for a very complex and very powerful political and economic body – the Antimonopoly Committee. Again, during his appointment, I asked Pavlo several technical questions so as not to embarrass him on the air, but he didn’t answer all of them correctly. In general, he didn’t answer all of them.

Again, that doesn’t make him a bad person in any way, but it certainly doesn’t make him the most qualified candidate for the Antimonopoly Committee, either. And this is where the problem arises, about which we are signaled, in particular by the president of the wonderful country that you mentioned. If we don’t have institutions, it’s difficult to entrust sometimes redundant or additional resources, because we really won’t be able to control that they don’t fall into the hands of bribers and criminals.

The last thing in my long speech is what foreigners are afraid of and they signal it clearly enough behind closed doors in various formats. They understand that we now have an oligarchy with minimal influence, which is good.

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But given that the country’s budget has received $60 billion, even more, since the beginning of the war, they’re afraid to create with their own hands these new power oligarchs who can dishonestly and illegally make great fortunes with this money. And institutions must work for this not to happen. So far, only the National Bank of Ukraine, the Finance Ministry, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), the National Agency on Corruption Prevention, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), the National Anti-Corruption Bloc of Ukraine NGO, and the High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine are among such institutions.

NV: Do you understand what the problem is in appointing a professional person who will meet his position? Are there no such people in our country?

Zheleznyak: We have many such people, the problem is that these people were either not born in Kryvyi Rih, or aren’t friends of the president’s family, or don’t have close ties with the “vice president,” i.e., the head of the President’s Office [Andriy Yermak]. That is, the problem is loyalty. When we appoint disloyal professional people, we get SAPO, NABU, and they don’t listen to anyone, as institutions should do. But I think the President’s Office doesn’t really support this approach.

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