Ministers made statements about guidelines of future work of Government
At an
extraordinary meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on Thursday, 4
February, the Prime Minister of Ukraine and Members of the Government announced
the guidelines of the work of the Government, including the inadmissibility of
pressure by parties, factions and particluar MPs,
maximum transparency of the authorities, fair wages for civil servants, open
and transparent public procurement without exception, the undisputable support
of the reform programme, cooperation with the IMF on
the part of the parliamentary coalition, no political interference in the
change of leadership in top 60 state-owned enterprises.
Minister of Health
of Ukraine Oleksandr
Kvitashvili, Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Oleksiy
Pavlenko, Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Andriy Pivovarsky and Minister of
Information Policy of Ukraine Yuriy Stets announced the withdrawal of their
resignation and announced the principles of future work.
Minister of
Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Oleksiy Pavlenko stressed that he “understand full responsibility for the fate of
the nation in a very hard and historical period”: “I want to withdraw publicly
my resignation if the following principles are implemented. First: I go against
destructive political pressure on the process of reform implementation – both
from the parties, factions and individual MPs. Second: I will insist on
completing all initiated processes in the area of deregulation, on food safety
reform, on land reform as well as on transparent agricultural privatization, on
human resources upgrade in authorities and accordingly on further fight against
the existing Russian economic aggression, incl. embargo, as well as to continue
our successful European integration in common European market”.
“There are already significant results. The business representatives as well as Ukrainian society have put value on this. I want my children to live in this country called Ukraine. We are a united team and adhere to common values. And the success of reforms depends on our unity. If these principles are not implemented, we will not work,” he emphasized.
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Minister of Information Policy of Ukraine Yuriy Stets highlighted a principle of the maximum transparency of the authorities. Yuriy Stets
announced the withdrawal of his resignation. At this he appealed to each
representative of the executive authorities: “Only the dialogue with society can provide us
with the opportunity to save the unity of Ukraine and could enable us to save
the country. Therefore, I emphasize that all authorities should hold their
meetings publicly and live. The representatives of all authorities, including
those sitting here, have to give every month a public report on the
activities of its government agency.” “Moreover, I stress and demand that all telephone calls as well as personal meetings with representatives of political forces, with acting MPs and representatives of business entities have to be fixed in a separate register and have to be published on the first media request,” he added. He continued: “either in case the representatives of business entities, business elite or representatives of some political forces try to put pressure on the Government representatives for lobbying personnel matters, or their own business interests or in case they interfere in the public authorities’ activity, I do request the heads of those authorities, including the current Ministers, to go public immediately – to communicate both with Ukrainian and foreign media, to inform the representatives of the NGOs as well as our partners all over the world on such a pressure. I also request to pass this information immediately to all newly created anti-corruption authorities. That will make the society well-informed and bring understanding that we are ready to be as transparent as possible”. “But we will not allow any pressure, and under no circumstances will fall for those attempts – including by representatives of political forces of our ‘partner’ from North here – to loosen and to obstacle the opportunity for normal activity of the Government of Ukraine and the Ukrainian authorities in general”, emphasized Yuriy Stets. Having
announced about withdrawal of his resignation, Minister of Health of Ukraine Oleksandr Kvitashvili
accentuated he had come from Georgia “to work and to fight for the future of
this beautiful country”: “I do not want to leave my work half done.” He emphasized: “Only this year we succeeded in making it not possible to steal millions of UAH, hundreds of millions of UAH by procurement transferring to ‘international organizations’. I do want Ukraine a normal, civilized European country. So it will not be possible to steal and to earn on human health”. The Minister accentuated that he supports the announced principles of work and accentuated the need “those laws that ares tuck for seven months in the Verkhovna Rada without adoption, and this does not give us the opportunity to build a normal, modern European health care system.Give us this opportunity. We are ready to fight for the future of Ukraine. Give me this opportunity. Let me show that it is possible”. Minister of Infrastructure
of Ukraine Andriy Pivovarsky
announced he would withdraw his resignation on condition all the declared and
the following principles to be fulfilled: “The first principle is a fair salary for
civil servants. We have to create necessary conditions for the fight against
corruption. The civil servants have to receive fair salaries – taking into
account the challenges they face as well as the responsibility they bear.” He continued: “Within the last year, billions of UAH have been saved during the state procurements: “Ukrzaliznytsia along with other enterprises of the Ministry of Infrastructure became a sample area for the ProZorro system, which was tested during the first half of the year”. “Public procurements in the state-owned enterprises are to become a norm. There have to be no exceptions. We have to switch to the new transparent procurement conditions that would allow us to save huge amounts of money, and thus we will be able to pay fair salaries not only to civil servants, but also to the heads of the state-owned enterprises. We have to put this principle into the law ”, stressed Andriy Pyvovarsky. Finance
Minister Natalie Jaresko noted the need to have
political support of the parliamentary coalition: “Last year we have gotten
this support despite permanent resistance and opposition. It has not to be
done this way. It is not normal. We are ready to work further as a team. We
are ready as a team to fight for the future of our country and for the future
of our people. But we do need a real support from the coalition”. “It has to become a principle to have irrevocable support of our reforms program, of the IMF program, including the immediate adoption of all the legislation necessary for transparent privatization. There should be no political interference into the management change in the top-60 of the state owned enterprises based on independent nomination committee created at this Government a year ago,” she said. Natalie Jaresko also advocates the need of the depolitization of the State Fiscal Service, where we have started a new system of tax administration. “I urge
all political forces to save the country, to stay away from the personal
interests, to fight for our future together, and to facilitate the reforms we
have started and are implementing,” the Finance Minister summed up.
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