LVIV, Ukraine, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that corruption, the country's chronic problem cast into the background by the war against Russia, would not be tolerated and promised forthcoming key decisions on uprooting it this week.
Zelenskiy's pledge came amidst allegations of senior-level corruption, including a report of dubious practices in military procurement despite officials promoting national unity to confront the invasion.
"I want this to be clear: there will be no return to what used to be in the past, to the way various people close to state institutions or those who spent their entire lives chasing a chair used to live," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.
Ukraine has had a long history of rampant corruption and shaky governance, with Transparency International ranking the country's corruption at 122 of 180 countries, not much better than Russia in 2021.
The EU has made anti-corruption reforms one of its key requirements for Ukraine's membership after granting Kyiv the candidate status last year.
"This week will be the time for appropriate decisions," Zelenskiy said. "The decisions have already been prepared. I do not want to make them public at this time, but it will all be fair."
Elected by a landslide in 2019 on pledges to change the way the ex-Soviet state was governed, Zelenskiy said that his government had accepted the resignation of a deputy minister after an investigation into allegations he accepted a bribe.
He did not identify the official, but news reports have said an acting deputy minister of regional development, Vasyl Lozinskiy, was detained on allegations of accepting a bribe.
The renewed focus on corruption involved also Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov after a newspaper reported that the military had allegedly secured food at highly inflated prices.
Reznikov's ministry described the allegations as "false" and a parliamentary committee had been asked to investigate.
Reporting by Maria Starkova; Writing by Ron Popeski; Editing by Lisa Shumaker
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Stroomschok on January 23rd, 2023 at 11:37 UTC »
If used intelligently, war-time can be a great opportunity to deal a blow to corruption due to the added 'traitor to the war effort' stigma and the additional authority a leader can use to ditch corrupt officials without question. As long as the guy on top isn't a corrupt shit himself in which case things just get worse afterwards.
davidjl01 on January 23rd, 2023 at 03:10 UTC »
That may be tougher to win than Russia
waheifilmguy on January 23rd, 2023 at 02:20 UTC »
My buddy grew up in Bosnia. He said you need to pay off cops when they pull you over or they are going to cause a huge problem for you even if you did nothing. Unfortunately in some places, this shit is endemic to their society. I hope Zlalensky has good intentions and I hope he can do something about it.