People's deputies work so hard that they take advantage of every opportunity to take a little rest.
Any Ukrainian can only envy the work schedule of a people's representative: plenary sessions two weeks a month (not always every day and not always from morning until evening), the rest of the time either meetings with voters or work on parliamentary committees.
Let's take January, for example. It's a holiday month, of course, and the country is out of work for almost half of it, but work is work. Like it or not, you have to go. And so, justifiably fearing retribution from their bosses, citizens flocked to their desks on the 12th.
Servants of the People don't work on Mondays, but by Tuesday, January 13th, most of them had arrived at parliament by 10:00 a.m. (They can start working at 8:00 a.m., but deputies need to get their sleep, because a sleepy MP won't be able to think about the fate of the Motherland.) After sharing their impressions of the New Year and Christmas holidays, they set to work with the zeal of pioneers.
The week passed productively: the deputies worked for four days with varying success and then went to the weekend.
Starting next Monday, January 19, parliamentarians are scheduled to work in committees. There are many committees in the Verkhovna Rada, 28 in all, with varying numbers of members, but only seven deputies do not participate in their meetings. These are the parliamentary leadership and a few strays for whom no place has yet been found.
The rest, it would seem, should be fulfilling their honorable duties by conscientiously attending committee meetings. But apparently, the deputies don't take their work seriously enough, which is why, from January 19th to 23rd, the committees met a whopping seven times.
The Head of the Verkhovna Rada Office, Mr. Zaychuk, kindly responded to the request and familiarized the PL with the attendance statistics.
Thus, in the Committee on Information and Communications, five out of eight deputies met twice a week.
The Health Committee, consisting of 7 out of 12 members, worked on Monday.
On Tuesday, 9 of the 13 members of the Financial Policy Committee decided to work.
On Wednesday, two committees met: the anti-corruption committee (14 out of 22 members were present) and the committee on family, youth and sports (5 out of 7).
The members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, although they met only once during the week, on January 22, were present at the meeting in full force.
It's quite interesting what the members of the other committees have been doing all this time.
Some, judging by their tans, unusual for the Ukrainian weather, were working with voters in warmer climates. Those deputies who retained their natural complexions may have simply been vacationing in more temperate climates. Others likely had serious reasons for their absence—personal issues or, God forbid, illness.
Well, yes, God bless those committees—the deputies aren't much use as it is. And when they don't show up, at least they can't do any harm.
P.S. We invite readers to imagine the reaction of an employer whose subordinates approach their duties in this way and then demand a raise from their superiors.
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