Luc Vancraen
11 November at 08:09 ·
Ukraine's oligarch preservation program is envied globally
Oligarchs are a cultural heritage to Ukraine very much like pandas are to China only they are not in the zoo. They own the zoo.
The most endangered people in Ukraine are obviously the oligarchs. In this fast evolving world they are a globally dying breed that requires protection. Ukraine has millions of poor, hundreds of thousands of street kids and tens of thousands of orphans. But oligarchs are rare and few. Thankfully Ukraine does everything humanly possible to preserve these increasingly rare oligarch specimen.
Oligarchs are unique people that acquire and preserve preferably obscene wealth thanks to favourable government connections and ridiculous state subsidies. There is nothing better than unfair competition to become very rich. The alternative is to work hard or to be non-criminally creative, skills an oligarch lacks.
A typical Ukrainian oligarch has his own bank. A bank in Ukraine is an institution where ordinary Ukrainians put their savings and oligarchs take it from them. The better oligarch has a bank that is serious enough to also be able to steal from a foreign bank too. No country in the world was hit more by the financial crisis than Ukraine. It was a feast where oligarchs collective emptied the savings accounts of their respective banks.
In the last year under an evil IMF program Ukraine’s national bank closed more than 50 banks because they were insolvent. Luckily nobody was prosecuted over trivial things that could have taken place before the closure of such a bank. Like wiring a $100 million to an offshore account called Bonnie & Clyde.
When the current president of Ukraine Poroshenko was president of the board of the national bank of Ukraine he started his own bank because that was the precise moment he had a massive conflict of interest. Could he have known then that an even better opportunity, to start a bank as president of the country would present itself later?
President Poroshenko won the elections by promising on his own television channel to sell his businesses and to move Ukraine to a more fair society governed by the Rule of Law. An election promise delivered by someone strong in democratic rhetoric and anti-democratic intent usually lacks credibility but some wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. The ignorant west even facilitated a bid by Nestlé the world biggest confectionary concern for his cookie factory, Roshen. They offered $1 Billion. Did they not know he had three poor kids and not just one? People should stop complaining that he did not sell his companies because he did not get a fair price. A fair price was something that made every of his kids a billionaire regardless of what a €500 million, shrinking in turnover cookie monopoly in Ukraine really is worth.
The biggest bank in Ukraine is owned by oligarch Kolomoyskyi. He is very famous for stealing businesses from people that actually have creative ideas. Ukrainians call this national sport: raiding. He even stole Swissport ground handling services in Ukraine despite EU protests. Out of gratitude he decided to base himself in Switzerland since it is such a profitable country. Ukrainian oligarchs role models are the bad guys in movies. They mimic them to run their respectable businesses. Likely after watching the Bond movie, a license to kill, Kolomoyskyi decided he too needed sharks in his office to get rid of incompetent henchmen.
If it was not for a $1 billion loan funded by poor Ukrainians through the national bank his systemic bank as the IMF calls it would be broke. Probably the sharks ate anyone who suggested to nationalise his bank. To be clear I am all opposed to this too.
The Rule of law is a deadly virus to oligarchs and they are very vulnerable to it. It is very much like feeding rice to Panda’s instead of Bamboo. To protect himself and his oligarch compatriots the Ukrainian president makes sure he only appoints certified incompetent prosecutor generals. Yarema's credibility came from being lustrated during Ukraine’s previous orange revolution. Under pressure from civic organisations the president had to replace him by Shoikin a 63 year old prosecutor general famous for never prosecuting anybody famous. To bring things into perspective bear in mind that not even ousted president Yanukovich has been prosecuted in Ukraine. There are plenty of people in Ukrainian jails but anybody present there is certified poor and most likely innocent.
The EU wanted friendly trade relations with Ukraine through an Association Agreement. Countries like Algeria, Chile, Jordan, Morocco, South Africa have such an agreement. Ukraine as a direct EU neighbour was about the last in the row to get it but brotherly oligarchs in Russia still felt it was a compelling reason to invade Ukraine.
Ever since the EU feels obliged to help Ukraine. Asking for help from the EU is like asking the panda’s to help you run the zoo. You get a lot of shit and bamboo but not much else. In EU rhetoric establishing the Rule of Law in Ukraine is really important. The Ukrainian crisis is handled directly by German Chancellor Merkel as nobody else is as competent in managing important EU issues. Her policy is based on the all talks and no action principle.
It is this important principle that protects the EU borders from illegal immigration, stops Russian aggression in Syria or Ukraine and helps to reform the Greek economy.
Needless to say that the Rule of law has not made much progress in Ukraine. Not that this would be difficult. A €1 billion EU loan for a rule of law fund could fund proper wages for new non corrupt prosecutors and judges. This single loan could terminate oligarchy and future loan requirements from Ukraine. Which is precisely what is wrong with a rule of law fund. Right now Ukrainians are borrowing billions which they can pay back in the coming decades with interest.
No great country was ever built with the help of others and the EU will give Ukraine every opportunity to become a great country. If Ukrainians want to get rid of oligarchs they are on their own. Again, not that even this would be difficult. The oligarch is simple specimen whose DNA is composed of 8 chromosomes of greed and two of crime. They could just organize a boycott of Roshen and hit Poroshenko in his greed chromosomes. For now the civic community in Ukraine is not there yet. Though the oligarchs did have to make sacrifices. They moved from the unsustainable levels of corruption under president Yanukovich back to almost sustainable president Kuchma levels.
To sum it up, the oligarchy in Ukraine is still in great shape. Largely thanks to the complicity of international institutions and a big loving oligarch brother called Putin whose invasion provided a lame excuse not to reform Ukraine too hard.
As you see little Ukrainian orphans, you don’t need to worry and let your sleep over your favourite oligarch. They are doing fine and the day you make a penny you can be sure they will come and take it from you.
