It has been three years since the Revolution of Dignity, and the entire country has been witnessing the successes and failures of a new wave of reforms in various spheres of life in a state rotten from head to toe with corruption.
We have witnessed the complete failure of the reform of the Ministry of Internal Affairs' structure, which now makes people afraid to go outside, leave their homes for the weekend to their dachas, or leave their cars in the yard, lest they be robbed by criminals who have become unbridled and unpunished, and who have no one to catch them.
Our children will still suffer from the "significant" reforms in the education system, which lags behind real life by several decades, gives children nothing but fatigue and illness, and does not prepare them for independent life in the modern world.
We experience similar "successes" in the healthcare system when we begin to treat ourselves with grandma's folk remedies, since doctors aren't much help, and the whole family needs to save up for medication.
Reforms to housing and utilities and the state's tariff policy have put every citizen of the country in their place—in a stable! Everyone has tightened their belts, most of them to the point of exhaustion, and we're paying for heat, electricity, and gas according to the bill. If we can't pay, we sell our homes and go free. That's how the state cares for us now.
What can we even say about those levies, traditionally called taxes, that our beloved state has begun to impose on us? In this area, of course, everything is clean and transparent. They announced reforms based on new standards, and they're being implemented. And they're being implemented so well that no one even notices. Not to mention the reforms in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Police, which everyone has spoken about.
And so, all is quiet at the Mykolaiv Regional State Fiscal Service – no high-profile lustration dismissals of officials from the Yanukovych gang's reign, no high-profile corruption scandals, no arrests, just the rustling of papers. This means everyone is happy, and Mykolaiv tax and customs officials are fulfilling their duties, working within the law, so that both local businesses and residents are happy, and, of course, the regional and state treasuries are well-filled.
It's likely that a share of the Mykolaiv fiscal service's success lies on the shoulders of its professional and competent leaders, untainted by ties to business or political forces, uninvolved in corruption, and not subject to the sword of lustration.
Who is so vigilant about the purity of the ranks of the Mykolaiv region's fiscal service?
This work is led by a local resident who has faithfully risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the tax police – Evgeny Vasilievich Ivanov, who has served as acting head of internal security for the Main Directorate of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine in Mykolaiv Oblast for the past five months.
New requirements for officials to submit declarations of assets, expenses, and financial liabilities in 2016 came into effect on March 18 of this year. Willful failure to file a declaration by a person authorized to perform state functions will now be punishable by a fine of 2500 to 3000 non-taxable minimum incomes, or community service for 150 to 240 hours, or imprisonment for up to two years with disqualification from holding certain positions or engaging in certain activities for up to three years.
Despite such harsh sanctions, Yevhen Vasilyevich's income declaration is missing from the official website of the Main Directorate of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine in Mykolaiv Oblast. Whether the police lieutenant colonel himself will be held accountable, or whether he honestly submitted his declaration, and one of the website administrators is at fault, is a matter for the Main Directorate's management to determine.
Even without a declaration, Yevgeny Vasilyevich will not deny that he is a mid-level government official who has dedicated his entire adult life to the difficult service of the tax police, for which, under all governments, he received a salary of no more than 5 hryvnia per month.
Moreover, information about some of the property of Yevgeny Vasilyevich's family can be found in the public domain without much difficulty.
For example, Svetlana Vladislavovna Ivanova, the wife of the main anti-corruption campaigner among tax and customs officials in the Mykolaiv region, owns a 20-hectare plot of land at 6 Tsegelny Lane, near the Raketny Urochishche. Adjacent to other luxury cottages belonging to wealthy Mykolaiv residents, a modern residential building of at least 400 square meters stands behind a high fence.
Official records state that this building is not yet in use. One can only guess that her caring husband, drawing on his many years of experience in the tax service, may have advised Svetlana Vladislavovna to at least slightly reduce the tax burden on the meager family budget of a government official by not registering ownership of the house.
It would have been difficult for Ivanov, upon being appointed the chief anti-corruption fighter, to explain to management how he spent his entire life on weekends building this family hearth brick by brick, laying them himself, and never noticing that he had built a house with a market value of around 5 million hryvnia.
Besides a comfortable home, Yevhen Vasilyevich also enjoys a comfortable ride. Given the lack of good roads in the city and surrounding region, as well as his passions for hunting and fishing, the leading anti-corruption activist chose powerful vehicles from reliable Japanese manufacturers: a Toyota Highlander SUV costing 1.15 million hryvnias and a Mitsubishi L200 costing over 500 thousand hryvnias.
The comfort and reliability of such cars is beyond doubt, and the fact that these cars are subject to an additional "luxury" tax, which a tax official cannot help but be aware of, is also beyond doubt.
Here we will leave it to the conscience of Lieutenant Colonel Ivanov himself and his superiors to determine whether Evgeny Vasilyevich demonstrated by example and paid all taxes and mandatory contributions to the budget so that our pensioners could receive money to survive in the conditions created for them by the state.
On what merits did the leadership of the Main Directorate of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine in Mykolaiv Oblast value the tax police lieutenant colonel, granting him command of an entire internal security unit of the entire regional fiscal service?
It's unlikely that Ivanov's brilliant talent for honest and impeccable service was the sole reason. Over the course of many years of service, on a modest official's salary, he managed to acquire a house worth 5 million hryvnias and luxury SUVs worth over 2 million hryvnias without the prosecutor's notice, and yet he hasn't been implicated in any corruption investigations.
According to local entrepreneurs and businessmen, nothing has changed in the region and city since the recent reforms—extortion remains the same. Every month, in addition to taxes and mandatory budget payments, tax authorities collect a "tribute" from every business.
Local entrepreneurs call our hero, Lieutenant Colonel Ivanov, a fighter against internal corruption, one of the most active "tribute collectors" in the region.
The tax policeman's estimated monthly haul is approximately 1 million hryvnias! It was this professional qualification that became the key argument for Ivanov's appointment to this important position, which also requires considerable approval in Kyiv.
Of course, it is precisely this kind of "specialist" who should lead the fight against corruption in the ranks of the new fiscal service of the Nikolaev region!
Elena Lazan, for SKELET-info
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