Tired of graft, foreign reformers flood out of Ukraine

KIEV:  It began as a trickle but turned into a flood: foreign technocrats are leaving Ukraine at the very moment the impoverished country needs them most to tackle endemic graft.

The raft of Europeans and Americans appointed to top government positions were once the hope of the former Soviet republic and the protesters who ousted a detested Russian-backed leader in February 2014.

Ukraine is not only waging a war against pro-Moscow insurgents in its separatist east but is also known as one of Europe´s most mismanaged and corrupt states.
Its gross domestic product has not grown since the Soviet era while that of its western neighbour Poland has increased more than five-fold and made the country a shining example for the rest of eastern Europe.

Pro-Western President Petro Poroshenko was striving to turn things around when he handed out Ukrainian passports to three foreigners in December 2014 and gave them senior ministerial posts.

All of them are now gone -- including the US-born investment banker and one-time finance minister Natalie Jaresko.

Jaresko´s time as finance minister was both a successful and sorrowful story that mirrors the tribulations of modern Kiev.

She managed to negotiate a massive commercial debt write-off that helped Ukraine stay financially afloat.

But Jaresko lost out in a power struggle for the premiership post, when it became clear that the government in place could no longer withstand the weight of corruption charges against it.

She resigned in April alongside Lithuanian-born economy minister Aivaras Abromavicius and brief-serving health minister Alexander Kvitashvili of Georgia.

Jaresko, a former US State Department official, bowed out without criticising the system she had worked in.

But Abromavicius declared upon quitting that he had no intention of "covering up open corruption".

The new government is led by Poroshenko protege Volodymyr Groysman and includes the unheralded Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk.

But its appointment appears to have done little to curb the insider-dealings and bribe-takings the new team had sworn to stamp out on its confirmation.