Remarks by Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk at a session of the Government on October 10, 2014

Dear colleagues!

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the Law of Ukraine "On the purging of government". Yesterday the President signed the law. We expect the publication of this law by the Administration. And, pursuant to this law, the country must carry out a complete purification of the entire power vertical, starting with the executive authorities, law enforcement system, security service, Prosecutor's office and courts and ending with the fact that now there is introduced within the country a new procedure of appointment to senior positions, a special verification procedure, with regard to property status and all biographical data, the background of each person.

I consider it one of the essential laws for Ukraine as the quality of the public administration system and corruption-free public authorities appear the pledge of real changes and reforms in the country.

We had to adopt this law 20 years ago. And a number of problems Ukraine faces these days is connected to the system of public administration and with those people who were directly engaged into public administration system, with total corruption and distrust of the citizens in officials, MPs, judges, prosecutors.  

The law On the purging of the government, approval of it and implementation of it has, undoubtedly, much more pros than those negative moments certain experts point out.  

The adoption of this law is the correct decision. So the first question is the Ministry of Justice should establish a Department for the execution of the Law “On the purging of government”, as the period of implementation of this law will be rather long.

The second concerns the State Fiscal Service to check incomes and expenditures of the high-rank government officials, judges and prosecutors. I also appeal to the head of the State Fiscal Service to set up a separate Department in the SFS for monitoring and verification of declarations and the property status of officials.

Third, as regards the execution of the law, today we will adopt a resolution on the procedure of inspections, and I want to single out, that apart from executive authorities the act shall apply to the investigators, prosecutors, judges and other categories of employees who, to the great regret, have a very poor reputation among Ukrainian citizens.

Concerning the new quality of authorities.

We have enough young people – intelligent, educated, honest and pure. For this purpose I commission the National Agency on Civil Service and the concerned ministries to immediately announce public competitions to attract new and young, well-qualified professionals to work for the civil service of Ukraine.

We have had the competition to fill the positions of Deputy Ministers on European integration. And over a half of the people who came and got the post are true professionals, mastering English, some of them have experience in the field of public administration, some of them have experience in other areas, but the main thing is these are people who are capable to work.

Hence, our great country has a great potential and in particular young people have a desire to make changes, so we should give Ukrainian youth a chance to carry out these changes. And the law on the cleansing amongst the authorities is called to purify the government and bring certain qualitative changes into it. 

I hope that the same thing will happen after the parliamentary elections that the parliamentary elections will yield to the cleansing amongst the Parliament.

And here proves necessary a political will of the new leaders of the Ukrainian state and wisdom of the Ukrainian nation when deciding for whom to vote.

So, at today's Government session, we shall decide on the procedure of inspections. The Government starts the execution of the Law "On the purging of government". The new quality of the system of public administration, the dismissal of all those who are corrupt, and all those who are personally, by the way, to blame for the troubles we face today in the country.

But we have enough strength, tools, wisdom and confidence to get through these ordeals and create a new qualitative administration system.

After the law comes in force, the Government shall immediately take personal cadre decisions. I have a large pile of applications for dismissal from office at personal request before the entry into force of the law.

Each profile ministry, pursuant to the legislation, should establish relevant units responsible for inspection, for dismissal of persons, the same concerns the HR departments, there should be the persons responsible for carrying out checks in the process of hiring for positions any state employee.

The main criterion is the trust in the government, trust in the people who are in charge and this criterion should be followed, so that people could feel that those who have the power think about people, instead of thinking about themselves.

Despite the fact we were late for 20 years, but it is better now than never. Those countries that have introduced lustration, those countries that have carried purging of authorities, by the way, we watched an interesting study of the post-Soviet totalitarian influence: those who had held purification demonstrate far better performance than those who had not.

We have every opportunity. Let’s move towards the new Ukrainian authorities, the new Parliament, the new Government and the new public administration system in general. This is what the Ukrainian nation demanded and what they deserve to have.

Thank mass media.