Using their agents in the Parliament, corruptionists try to emasculate behind the scenes the anti-corruption tax bill. CASE Ukraine`s Senior Economist Vladimir Dubrovsky has written about that in a column for Delo.ua.
‘Just recently we celebrated the third anniversary of the Revolution of Dignity. Now many question whether we have achieved what we had fought for? It is fashionable to believe that the reforms failed and ‘zrada’ (betrayal) triumphs. However, I remain a cautious optimist as moving in the right direction continues in spite of everything.
Until the old system is being preserved, the corruption will flourish in spite of staff changes and putting someone in prison. The revolution of Dignity will reach its goals only if the legislation will be largely cleared of those rules, which allow arbitrariness (discretion), and the ministers, who are potentially interested in such norms, are strictly separated from the process of decision making. Then it will be possible to put those transgressors in prisons
To do that, the new ‘anti-corruption’ laws must replace the corrupt ones. But it is not those severely punishing offenders: in this system they will inevitably become victims of the selective use of the law (and hence of corruption), because it is impossible to put in prison everyone who deserves it. It is about creating conditions under which it is impossible to violate – on the one hand – and to demand bribes under threat of law; or at least it will be impossible to punish an innocent person and to turn a blind eye on the ‘useful’ person`s violations.
We all remember last year`s considering a compromise bill, when the corrupt motives-driven norm of two registers for VAT refunds had been urgently proposed. Here and now, through their agents in the Parliament corruptionists try to emasculate the bill behind the scenes. It happens behind the scenes, because they cannot resist in public to the adoption of anti-corruption rules. Otherwise it will become clear the source of the state-level ‘zrada’ (betrayal), and a political retribution will not be long in coming. But all the secret sooner or later becomes clear: in our country, where ‘source of power is Facebook’, it usually takes a few days. So I hope that we will prove to defend an important step in tax reform, and the Revolution of Dignity will win in this episode.