Ukraine agriculture has become
less corrupt over the last year according to one Vadim Ivchenko, a member of the
Parliamentary Committee on Agrarian Policy and Land Relations.
He cites the joint efforts of
the Parliamentary Committee and the Agriculture Ministry in promoting an active
policy of deregulation that has removed many opportunities for bribes and coercion.
The more cynical might say it’s
just window dressing and I suspect even if the intentions to deal with
corruption are good, the reality is it probably is a little bit of smoke and mirrors.
But it doesn’t matter; if
Ukraine is officially dealing with corruption inasmuch as all the right boxes
are ticked then this will allow due diligence to green light corporate governance
opening up the possibility of serious levels of inward investment.
Investments and the business
practices that follow mean that everyday corruption is harder to pass off and instead becomes modernised and turns up as things like cash for questions or peerages for donors.
This is the route that Ukraine
is trying to follow and appears to be succeeding, to my mind it is only a
matter of time until we start to see serious inward investment into the country
and some significant social changes taking hold.