“Only “hardcore” can change the situation in the form of a complete reboot”: Volodymyr Dubrovskyi on the reform of the customs service

Restarting the customs service is not just a necessity, but an urgent need of the hour, because the customs office has become a symbol of corruption, abuses and mistrust on the part of businesses and citizens over the years of independence. Every government that came to power promised to reform the customs service, but in practice it turned out to be impossible due to the lack of political will, opposition from the system and other objective and subjective factors. Most of the reforms ended with only declarative changes that did not affect the real situation.

At the same time, the war forced the government to act more decisively, because corruption schemes at customs not only harm the economy, but also undermine the country’s defense capabilities. International partners have repeatedly emphasized the need for changes, and now these requirements have become part of the conditions for further support. Draft Law No. 6490d, adopted by the Verkhovna Rada, became a breakthrough in the fight against systemic corruption and created the prerequisites for a complete restart of the customs service. This decision can be considered the beginning of a new era, when changes will affect not only the top management, but also the system as a whole. The future of Ukraine’s economy and citizens’ trust in state institutions depend on how effectively this reform will be implemented.

As considers the senior economist of CASE-Ukraine, specialist of the Economic Expert Platform, Volodymyr Dubrovskyi, last week another “impossible” happened: the Council supported the Law No. 6490d on restarting the customs service.

“For how many years we were convinced that this could not be done for various reasons, starting with “it won’t help” and ending with “where are you going to get so many qualified customs officers – these are not tax inspectors for you!”.

As we can see, military necessity in combination with the pressure of partners who, although many years later, still realized the need for a radical reset, work wonders.

As Churchill (allegedly) said about the Americans: “they always make the right decision after everyone else has tried.” This is precisely about our reforms, especially such as this one.

However, there is an even more characteristic and urgent case – the tax office, in which the ghost of its founder, Mykola Azarov, still lives. What reforms have not been tried, but there is no result…

But reloading is a godsend, “and where to get so many tax collectors”? Another rearrangement of the beds was prescribed in the National Revenue Strategy, which is supposed to “restore” trust in the tax office, as if it had ever existed.

It is time to admit that, at least, if “corrupt verticals” were operating in a state body at a certain stage, then non-corrupt personnel could remain only in technical positions (and there they received additional payments “in envelopes” from the general fund)”. – emphasized the expert.

He believes that only “hardcore” in the form of a complete reboot, possibly with the preservation of the technical staff, can change the situation. Otherwise, the same patronage culture will be reproduced again and again, where higher managers provide a “roof” to lower ones in exchange for a share of “living money”.

“And where did it “fail” to count salary from cards, when there is a “live penny”… Traffic police, tax police and its successor BEB, the judicial system, BTI, several other structures, now here is the customs office – so far, nowhere else has worked. It’s time to draw conclusions and regarding others, primarily DPS.

A true reform strategy should begin and end with a reset of the relationship between taxpayers and the tax system, for which the “reset” of the DPS is a necessary step, since there is no other effective way to “erase” the tax fraud and corruption rooted in the tax system.

Necessary, but not sufficient: if we leave the corrupt opportunities for which bribes are now paid to enter the tax academy and take a “bread” position in the tax service, the new people who “pecked” at them may turn out to be no better than the current ones.

Or they will quickly learn the same ways of “earning”, especially since most of the payers have also learned the rules of the game well. Let’s recall, for example, what the replacement of “18,000 civil servants” brought by Yushchenko’s initiative… And only after such a reset is successfully carried out, it will be possible to consider further steps, at least because this in itself is capable of providing an additional 2% of the GDP of tax revenues, for which the National Revenue Strategy (VAT) was formally created.

However, as stated in the NSD, as many as 70% of taxpayers trust tax officials — what other reforms are you missing? True, the authors of the strategy “forgot” to indicate that the figure was taken from a survey that related to… consultations and explanations provided by tax officials, and also refers to a very specific period of 2022, when, on the wave of patriotic emotions, significantly more people trusted the state authorities, than usual And this is the foundation on which the National Revenue Strategy in terms of tax policy is built!”, – emphasizes Volodymyr Dubrovskyi.

The expert expresses his own opinion, which may not coincide with the editorial position.