Editor’s note: This is issue 54 of Ukrainian lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelezniak’s weekly “Ukrainian Economy in Brief” newsletter, covering events from April 29- May 5, 2024. The digest highlights steps taken in the Ukrainian parliament related to business, economics, and international financial programs.
The Kyiv Independent is republishing with permission.
IMF benchmarks in focus
The Tax Policy Committee has finalized the table of amendments to the draft law on the Bureau of Economic Security reform.
The Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy has finalized the table of amendments to draft law #10439 on restarting the Bureau of Economic Security (known in Ukraine by its acronym BEB), which is necessary to start the consideration of the draft law. The final table of amendments has a total of 1,403 proposals.
Lawmakers Yaroslav Zhelezniak, Anastatsia Radina ,and Maksym Khlapuk submitted 170 amendments to the draft law regarding key provisions to meet crucial requirements of anti-corruption experts and business associations. We also tabled more than 1,000 technical amendments solely to increase the impact on the second reading vote.
The final table of amendments also includes amendments, which were actually prepared by the Justice Ministry but formally submitted by the Head of the Committee, lawmaker Danylo Hetmantsev (as the Cabinet of Ministers and the Justice Ministry do not have the right to submit amendments independently to the second reading, and according to the procedure, only a member of parliament can do this).
According to our analysis, these amendments are mostly based on the proposals that international partners previously submitted to the Justice Ministry.
However, among the amendments proposed by the Justice Ministry and lawmaker Hetmantsev, there is no rule regarding the selection of only one candidate for the position of BEB director based on the competition results.
Instead, the provision on the selection of "no more than two candidates" remains. We continue to insist on the need to select only one candidate and have submitted the appropriate amendments authored by lawmakers Zhelezniak, Radina and Khlapuk.
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We would also like to inform you that in the case of maintaining a composition of "no more than two candidates," it makes sense to insist that in this case the competition commission should vote for two candidates not in a single package but make a decision on each candidate separately. Only this way will ensure the possibility that in the final selection, the commission will be able to choose only one candidate if it has doubts about the others.
We also submitted an amendment that provides that in the case of recommending two candidates for appointment, both nominations should be supported by all three representatives of the international partners in the commission.
We draw attention to one more important nuance. In the amendments prepared by the Justice Ministry, it is said that the procedure for re-certification is determined by the law and the newly elected director of the BEB, while the memorandum with the IMF states that the procedure for re-certification should be determined by the Cabinet of Ministers in accordance with the law.
We strongly support the concept that the government does not take part in the process because this is a great opportunity for the government to delay the process of re-certification and influence it.
Other key economic issues
This week the parliament may adopt several personnel decisions.
According to the draft of the agenda for plenary meetings on May 8-10, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, may consider several personnel changes. Previously it was said that there may be several issues on releasing from offices, in particular among the ministers in the Cabinet of Ministers.
However, the exact list of persons whose positions in the government may change is still unknown, except Mykola Solskii, the minister of Agrarian Policy. As we reported in Issue 53, Solskii submitted a resignation letter as NABU suspects him in violations regarding cases of illegally taking possession of state land in 2017-2018 before his political career.
President Volodymyr Zelensky submitted delegated legislation (DL) to extend martial law and general mobilization in Ukraine.
Relevant DLs suggest extending martial law and mobilization from May 14 for another 90 days until Aug. 11.The parliament will vote for prolongation of the martial law later this week.
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