Oksana Sniorid, a former deputy speaker of Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada who helped draft anti-corruption legislation, has spoken out against the practice of bringing in foreign experts to help form and run Ukrainian institutions. She said Ukrainians should take responsibility for the functioning of their own state bodies rather than placing that responsibility on representatives of other countries. Sniorid made the comments in an interview with the civic initiative "Holka", published by Glavkom.
Sniorid said that involving foreign experts in the process amounted to Ukrainians removing responsibility from themselves. She described this as infantile and a sign of an inferiority complex, comparing it to a small girl who is being beaten and refuses to deal with the problem herself, instead going to fetch a powerful adult to sort things out on her behalf. She said that at some point people had to say they were grown up and would take responsibility themselves.
The former deputy speaker also warned against the idea that the origin of foreign specialists alone guarantees their integrity. She said people should not assume that those born in Europe or America are inherently honest while people in Ukraine are inherently corrupt. She argued that if people in those countries could gain more profit by not paying taxes, they would do so, adding that it was not the state that forbade this but rather that citizens themselves agreed, at the time their states were founded, that it was better to pay taxes than avoid them.
Limits of foreign involvement
According to Sniorid, Ukraine spends significant effort trying to secure the participation of foreign specialists in its own institutions, but the mechanism alone cannot change the system. She said Ukraine expends enormous effort lobbying Europeans, Americans and the International Monetary Fund to place a handful of respected foreigners in these roles, hoping they will bring positive change. But she said that as long as these people remain a foreign element, they will not change the system, and that foreigners could be invited in only after Ukrainians themselves agreed to act differently.
Sniorid linked the issue to the broader question of responsibility for the work of state institutions, saying external participants cannot replace internal agreements on the rules by which the system should function.
Background on Sniorid
Sniorid was a member of parliament in Ukraine's eighth convocation and served as deputy speaker of the Verkhovna Rada from 2014 to 2019. She took part in preparing judicial reform and worked on the Constitutional Commission, and was the author of the idea to create the Public Integrity Council. She now serves as an officer in Ukraine's Defence Forces, in the 2nd Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine, "Khartiia".
The Public Integrity Council is an independent public body in Ukraine that helps the High Qualification Commission of Judges vet judges and candidates for judicial posts on matters of honesty, ethics and the lawful origin of their assets.
