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Nation    

IMF tells Ukraine to amend legislation
Journal Staff Report

KIEV, June 19 - The head of the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday indicated that Ukraine must quickly amend its recently approved anticorruption legislation in order to win resumption of $17.5 billion lending program.

Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), issued a statement shortly after a phone conversation with President Petro Poroshenko.

"We agreed that it is now important for Parliament to quickly approve ... the necessary amendments to restore the requirement that the HACC [anti-corruption court] will adjudicate all cases under its jurisdiction," Lagarde said in the statement.

The warning is the first major sign that the IMF is not happy with the legislation and that Ukraine has not done enough to fight its notorious corruption.

Ukraine dragged its feet for many months in approving the legislation to create a trustworthy court, but the final draft had appeared to contain amendments that water down the entire idea.

Besides the concerns about the anti-corruption legislation, Lagarde told Poroshenko about other shortcomings that must be fixed before the IMF sits down to decide on the loan.

“We also agreed to work closely together, including with the government, toward the timely implementation of this and other actions, notably related to gas prices and the budget, that are critical to allow the completion of the pending review under Ukraine’s IMF-supported program,” Lagarde said.

Many political observers blame Poroshenko and his business partners and loyalists for delaying the legislation and then approving the draft that may waters down the anti-corruption fight.

Lagarde’s comments come in contrast with an 856-word essay written by Poroshenko and published by the Washington Post on Monday with a title: “My goal is to defeat corruption in Ukraine.”

“Our country took another important move forward on its path toward building a European state where all are equal under the law,” Poroshenko wrote. “This was not the first step in this journey, and it won’t be the last. But I believe it showed that our journey toward a genuine democracy is now irreversible.”

“Upon being elected in May 2014, I set out to build a completely new architecture to fight corruption. My allies in this endeavor were Ukraine’s vibrant civil society and its volunteer networks, together with our international partners in the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and North America,” Poroshenko said.

And then Poroshenko blamed opposition lawmakers and unnamed ‘populists’ that had allegedly delayed the anti-corruption reform.

“Like their allies elsewhere in Europe, Ukraine’s populists loudly use the rhetoric of fighting corruption while having no interest in solving the problem. They are members of the former Party of Regions of Viktor Yanukovych, and the anti-reformist oligarchs. After all, the oligarchs living in luxurious exile in Western Europe would be the first who could face the anti-corruption Court.

“Acting in unison, all these opponents did their best to try to block the establishment of the anti-corruption court,” Poroshenko wrote. (nr/ez)




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