22 August 2014
Economy Minister Pavlo Sheremeta announced his resignation on Aug. 21, citing his inability to work within outdated government structures, process and people. The government continues to have a predatory attitude to business and ought to remove tax pressures, he told an Aug. 21 press conference. “I fought with one monitoring body that decide it needs to raid one of Ukraine’s spheres,” he said, as reported by the Ukrayinska Pravda news site. “One of the law enforcement bodies decided to pursue excise duties from 2011.”
As the formal reason for his resignation, he cited the appointment, without his approval, of Valeriy Piatnytskiy as Ukrainian trade representative, which also has the status of deputy economy minister. The prior day, Sheremeta hinted at his resignation on his Facebook site. “Instead of continuing to fight against yesterday’s system, I decided to focus on work with tomorrow’s people, who are creating tomorrow’s system,” he said.
Zenon Zawada: Sheremeta’s resignation is hardly cause for concern, given the minimal influence of Ukraine’s economy ministry and the likely emergence of a new Cabinet by the year end, after early parliamentary elections. Yet his resignation is reflective of the lack of reform and innovation being pursued by the current government, given that Shermeta is among the more progressive figures in Ukrainian economics.