Thirty-nine government heads roll after lustration law takes effect

(Business New Europe – bne.eu – October 17, 2014) Ukrainian PM Arseny Yatsenyuk has said that 39 top government officials have lost their jobs on the basis of a lustration law that entered into force on October 14, purging officials who served under former president Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted in February.

“In accordance with the basic norm of the lustration law, the government of Ukraine will dismiss a total of 39 high-ranking officials. Of them, 19 have voluntarily handed in a letter of resignation, and the other 20 will be dismissed under the norm of Ukraine’s lustration law,” Yatsenyuk said on October 16, according to newswires.

Among the new vacancies with immediate effect in Kyiv are: deputy defence minister; head of the state service on regulation and entrepreneurialism; head of the state space agency; head of the state service of export control; head of the state agency for water resources; head of the Chernobyl agency; first deputy economy minister; first deputy justice minister; head of state intellectual property service; head of the state service for mining and industrial safety; head of the state agricultural inspection; first deputy ministry for infrastructure; head of the state agency for the restoration of Donbass; head, first deputy head and deputy head of the state statistics agency; first deputy head of the state nuclear inspectorate.

In addition, some governors and ten heads of national commission will be dismissed, Yatsenyuk said. “We expect that the president of Ukraine will swiftly endorse the dismissal of these officials,” Yatsenyuk added, as quoted by Interfax.

Yatsenyuk stressed “that this is only the first stage,” as further reviews of top state officials will begin in November, with lustration continuing through 2016.

The guillotines are also working overtime at the interior ministry, according to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, an ally of Yatsenyuk. Avakov said several dozen top ranking police generals would be fired, and that he would eliminate Ukraine’s transport police, its anti-organized crime department, and ban traffic police from working in cities.

“Lustration is convenient to do now because there’s an election campaign,” writes Concorde Capital’s Zenon Zawada. “But beyond these demonstrative announcements and after the elections, we expect it will fall short of the standards that would qualify it as a wholesale reform,” Zawada argues, while finding it nonetheless “a step in the right direction.”