60% of employees of Ukraine's tax service will be laid off
The Minister of Finance of Ukraine Oleksandr Danylyuk said that 60-70% of the employees of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine will be laid off. He made this statement during his speech on Friday at the Kennan Institute in Washington. In his opinion, this is an example set by his agency for the whole country, which "needs the renewal of the entire apparatus of the state civil service."
"One example is the State Fiscal Service,'' Danylyuk said. ''There, I believe 60-70% of people will have to leave. They are simply unable to think in terms of reform." In support of this assertion, the Minister pointed out that last week he told tax service employees that they would be evaluated according to Western-style KPI (Key Performance Indicators) system and this announcement "caused not only surprise, but shock for everyone."
"In general, overhauling the state apparatus is a serious problem," Danylyuk said, noting that "if it is not solved in the future it will become a serious obstacle" for the development of the country.
American organizers of the event asked whether the layoffs of Fiscal Service staff could create "a vivid example of a specific group of people who became the victims of the reforms” and whether it could lead to an overall increase in opposition to the reforms and strengthening of the resistance to them in society. In response, Danylyuk said that as he was once told by Georgian colleagues, "the corrupted are cowards." "I do not think that they will fight. We’ll fire them and that’s it. All of this does not scare me."
The Ukrainian minister asserted that a much more important issue was the support of reforms by the Ukrainian people. "How to achieve it, I do not know,'' he admitted. ''Perhaps by continuous—really continuous—explanations to people, what is done and why."
In Washington the Ukrainian Minister participates in the annual meeting of the governing bodies of the IMF and the World Bank.