Translated material
Dizziness from Saakashvili
Ekaterina Sergaskova - about how Georgian reformers equip Ukraine
On Saturday, May 30, the former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili wasappointed head of the Odessa regional administration. At the same time, he received Ukrainian citizenship. Saakashvili is the most important, but not the first Georgian reformer employed in Ukraine. Over the past six months, former Georgian officials have occupied many state posts; Almost all of them are engaged in systemic transformations in the country. At the request of Medusa, Kiev journalist Ekaterina Sergaskova tells whether the Georgian reformers managed to achieve something in Ukraine.
“What other abnormal would go to work in Odessa by the Governor? And yes, everyone told me that Georgia is flowers [compared to Ukraine], and nothing will work. But we were born to make it possible to make it possible, ”said the former President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili during his speech at the Proomist city initiatives festival, dedicated to Kyiv Day. There was a full house in the hall.
The appointment of Saakashvili by the head of the Odessa regional administration (a position corresponding to Russia in Russia) has split the Ukrainian society. Some believe that the post of head of an individual region, although not much lagging behind Georgia in size, is not important enough for a policy of this level; And that it was necessary to provide him with a chair, at least, Deputy Prime Minister. It seemed to others incorrect that the place of the head of the Odessa region was taken by a “runaway foreigner”, who for this accepted Ukrainian citizenship and at the same time got rid of the prospect of extradition to Georgia, where criminal cases were instituted on him (Saakashvili was accused of exceeding the disposal of the opposition campaign in November 2007, the defeat of telecommunications and the seizure of Vediy and the seizure of ownership of it founder Badri Patarkatsishvili).
Saakashvili replaced Igor Palitsa, a former business partner and a protracting of the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky as the head of the Odessa regional administration. In March 2015, Kolomoisky himself was resigned from the post of head of the Dnipropetrovsk region by decree of the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, with whom he had a conflict due to the state of the Ukrnaft enterprise ( Read more about this in the article by the Medusa specialist Ilya Zhegulev ). The appointment of Saakashvili is considered a continuation of the offensive on Kolomoisky: Poroshenko, thus, eliminated another political player controlled by the oligarch. At the same time, according to Ukrainian political scientists, Saakashvili can move to the Ukrainian government after work in the Odessa region.
Mikhail Saakashvili is far from the first Georgian official in a Ukrainian public office. The Georgian expansion began in the fall of 2014, when the Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk agreed on the invitation of foreigners to state posts to the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and the People’s Front. Poroshenko then [reported] (http://meduza.io/ (http://nv.ua/ukraine/smi-v-novyy-kabmin-voydut-merikancy-gruziny-i-litovcy-22468.html) one-partners) To work: Lithuania citizen Abromavichus (Minister of Economic Development and Trade), American citizen Natalya Yaresko (Minister of Finance), as well as Georgian citizens (they occupied several posts at once) Poroshenko from May 2014-and until the day of his death on November 13, 2014.
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In December 2014, the Ukrainian government carried out the first high -profile transfer: Ekaterina Zguladze was appointed as deputy minister of the Interior. From 2005 to 2012, she worked in a similar position in Georgia and reformed the Georgian police. In Ukraine, Zguladze is engaged in about the same. In winter, she announced a set of new employees in the Kiev patrol service and received an incredible response: 33 thousand people submitted applications, while no more than two thousand were to choose (future police officers were studying until July 2015 under the program developed by Georgians).
Together with her, Khatia Dekanoidze, a former Minister of Education and rector of the Georgian Police Academy, also works with her on the reform of the Ukrainian police. In Ukraine, Dekanoidze (based on Georgian experience) proposed to eliminate the system of many years of police training, replacing it with lectures and training in legal specialties, tactics and shooting. In addition, Dekanoidze opened a school for young Ukrainians in Kiev with an active civic position Civil and Political School.
Then, on December 2014, Alexander Kvitashvili came to the Ukrainian government, who worked as the Minister of Health, Labor and Social Affairs of Georgia under Saakashvili. In Kyiv, he has a similar position and a similar task - to reform the country's health system and save this sphere of corruption. His program has a transition to predominantly paid medicine since 2015 (now in the country - officially free medicine). On April 3, 2015, Kvitashvili fired the heads of all departments of the department he headed, after which he said that he proposed to eliminate the sanitary and epidemiological services. “The Canapidemlines have robbed the whole country with bribes. I do not think that they somehow worked effectively for the good and health of the nation. It is necessary to depart from such Soviet structures, remove Soviet symbols such as a sanitary and epidemiological station, and switch to normal work, ” said Quitashvili.
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In February 2015, another Georgian citizen - former Tbilisi prosecutor and deputy prosecutor general at Saakashvili David Sakvarelidze - was [appointed] (http://meduza.io/ (http://focus.ua/country/325018/) Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine Viktor Shokin. In the new place, he called the personnel policy in a new place, as well as issues related to European integration and reform of the prosecution authorities, already in April 2015 there was a small scandal with his participation: Sakvarelidze said that he was offered a bribe of $ 10 million for patronage in an illegal business scheme that proposed a person who proposed money. announcement of the results of the investigation.
Another representative of the team of Georgian reformers - Gizo Ugulava, the former deputy prosecutor general of Georgia under Saakashvili, will fight corruption. On April 27, 2015, he was appointed First Deputy Director of the National Anti -Corruption Bureau.
The Ministry of Justice, led by Pavel Petrenko, decided to take several citizens of Georgia at once. The deputy minister was Gia Gerzadze, the dean of the law faculty of the State University of St. Elijah in Tbilisi; The head of the State Executive Service is the former head of the legal service of the National Bureau of Forced execution of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia, Khatia Shelia.
But with the new head of the State Registration Service of Ukraine came out of the bad luck. The head of the department was to be the former Deputy Minister of Justice of Georgia, Jaba Ebanoidze, who carried out tax reform in Georgia. Back in May 2014, according to Ebanoidze himself, he came to Kiev as part of the expert group to study how the system works, and in December he was officially invited to become a citizen of Ukraine and the head of the registration service. However, the service was soon liquidated, creating a separate department as part of the Ministry of Justice, and then it turned out that Ebanoidze actually had no authority to exercise any reforms. As a result, herefused from office.
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A similar story happened not only with the Georgian “Varangians”. In mid-May 2015, a German citizen and a native of Lviv Sasha Borovik, the former head of the legal department of the American IT company Akamai Technologies, with a scandal [quit] (http://meduza.io/ (http://nv.ua/ukraine/politics/v-kabmine-razg OreLSYA-SKANDAL-IZ-ZA-KONFLIKTA-ZAMMINISTRA-KSPATA-S-PREMEROM--48648.htML) The first deputy minister of economic development, headed by Lithuania Aivaras Abromavichus. approves.
“The Ukrainian political and business death ended up in the Mexican Duel-everyone has something on someone and holds something against another group or party,” Sasha Borovik told Medusa. - At the same time, the lack of political parties built around economic doctrines, and not on loyalty to the leader, complicates the process of carrying out economic reforms. In this sense, Georgians are more independent than Ukrainian politicians. They do not have such a baggage of the past, and the Ukrainian elites are guided by them to get out of the current impasse. Whether the Georgians will be able to depend on whether they can remain independent, and the Ukrainian elites will show their readiness to maintain their powers. From this, having the experience of Georgia and the charismatic leader of Saakashvili, a great team of reformers may turn out, which the Ukrainian political horizon historically lacks. ”
The former press attache of the Georgian Embassy in Ukraine Bacho Korchilava, in a conversation with Medusa, noted that the Georgian team of reformers is manifested effectively, especially in the field of law enforcement agencies. “You can say with a high degree of probability about the effectiveness of the [Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine] Ekgladze, since a new patrol police will appear in Kiev in Kiev. This, of course, is showcase reform, but she has a great support for society. The [Minister of Health of Ukraine] Alexander Kvitashvili - like the [Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine] David Sakvarelidze - there are no such significant successes yet, but they are dealing with more systemic issues. There is no such crazy pace of reforms that was taken in Georgia yet, but the resistance of the system itself is felt that they are trying to change. ”
At the same time, Mikhail Saakashvili Korchilava considers the appointment of Mikhail Saakashvili only “the beginning of his career” in Ukrainian politics. “Knowing Misha, I can say that he is a very ambitious person,” says Korchilava. - He will try to make a good result on the scale of Odessa, will be there for the next year or longer, will greatly develop the region. He has already taken such a pace from which the Ukrainian politicians begins dizziness. Previously, they shouted that if Ukraine had its own Saakashvili, we would have succeeded, and now we have our own Saakashvili, and they were scared and shout that we have enough talented people, why take another foreigners. Meanwhile, Saakashvili has already fired all the heads of the districts of the Odessa region and announced an open competition for these positions. It is immediately obvious that he took the landmark to replace the elites. And everyone was scared. Misha chose the Odessa region in order to set the tone and pace on the example of the region. In the post of deputy prime minister, he could insert more sticks into the wheels. But he, as a person, is with the leaders in the government on an equal footing, and they will have to reckon with him. ”
Ekaterina Sergaskova
Kyiv