Ukraine presidential deputy condemns state inspections of IT firms

Dmytro Shymkiv, a deputy head of the Presidential Administration and former director of Microsoft Ukraine, condemned inspections of Ukrainian IT companies conducted in recent weeks by law enforcement and fiscal authorities. He said he received reports of these authorities confiscating private property, including servers, which he described as the “destruction of months, and sometimes years, of highly intellectual work.” “On the eve of an investment forum in Berlin, where the government will discuss Ukraine’s investment potential, reviews and inspections by men in masks ruin the state’s investment attractiveness and innovation sphere,” he wrote in an Oct. 21 blog. Several big IT firms are considering investing Ukraine at the moment, which could be undermined, he reported.

Zenon Zawada: This situation reveals just how uncoordinated and splintered the government is. It’s embarrassing that such a high-ranking, highly respected state official as Shymkiv has encountered difficulty in restraining the aggressiveness of state authorities, who are under the direct influence of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. To his credit, Shymkiv reported he received the cooperation from Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius to resolve the conflict. But it’s also embarrassing that these bodies, which were supposed to be replenished and reformed after the EuroMaidan, are still behaving as cavemen, to use Shymkiv’s comparison. It’s conflicts like these that might encourage the Presidential Administration to find the means to replace Yatsenyuk after the local elections, we beleive.