Police reform - more PR than reformation

So-called police reform – it’s gross political PR plus large wastefulness from Ukraine’s state budget and here is the next example. This year on the Day of the Fight against Breast Cancer new patrol policemen presented rosy roses for ladies in Kyiv, Lviv, Vinnytsya, Chernihiv, Mykolayiv to remind women about the necessity of the examination their health. I’d like to ask you, my dear readers, how do you think? Is this a duty of policeman – to work a medical consultant? Has nowaday Ukrainian state power a conscience, when presents expensive roses (nearly 15 hryvnias per 1 rose) in the streets, while many Ukrainian families can’t have just normal nutrition because of high food prices in the shops?

And would a real qualitative reformation of the militia into police begin with a systematic breach of state legislation? On 7^th November new law “About National Police” (was accepted by Ukrainian parliament on 2^nd July 2015) came into force and Ukrainian militia officially was renamed Ukrainian police. As I wrote in the previous article http://thoughtsanddreamsfromukraine.blogspot.com/2015/12/police-reform-with-georgian-colouring.html, the Head of National Police of Ukraine Khatia Dekanoidze had been assigned despite of the demands of the 21^st article of this law. The same thing happened with the assignment of the First Deputy Head of National Police of Ukraine. On 4^th November 2015 this post was headed by 29-year-old Oleksandr Fatsevych, a military man by his high education and job experience (he graduated from Odesa Institute of Land Troops and worked a paratrooper in the 79^th Aerial-Mobile Brigade of Ukrainian Army). Earlier O. Fatsevych managed Kyiv Patrol Police since 12^th June 2015 and was allocated on the post of the leader of Patrol Police of Ukraine on 6^th November 2015, being the First Deputy Head of National Police of Ukraine at once and infringing Ukrainian laws. Fatsevych was born in Russia and moved with his parents in Ukraine in 1998, he is Russian-speaking person, like so-called reformers of Ukrainian police structure from Georgia, about whom it’s written in the last article on this blog.    

Instead of Oleksandr Fatsevych, on 16^th November 2015 Yuriy Zozulya was appointed the Head of Kyiv Patrol Police, the ex-leader of Lviv Patrol Police from 20^th August 2015, who had worked a private policeman in the newly-created Kyiv Patrol Police before these two state appointments. As the head of police Dekanoidze and her first deputy Fatsevych, Zozulya hadn’t high juridical education and sufficient job experience in Ukrainian state legal-protective institutions to govern Kyiv Patrol Police or Lviv Patrol Police according to the demands of the law “About National Police”, so his appointments are the breaches of that law too. Y. Zozulya’s biography is very strange, because there are nowhere his official biographical data nowadays. Almost after his assignment in Lviv Patrol Police he told Lviv journalists at special press-conference that he lived in private house nearby Kyiv and drove own car, but he refused to call his jobs before his police era, like he didn’t say where his parents and wife worked. Instead of it journalists of Lviv media online Zaxid.net and Lviv newspaper “Ratusha” learnt and published the information about Zozulya’s seven infringements of Ukrainian Rules of Road Movement in 2014-2015, and it’s curious to know that the seventh time was happened on 26^th August 2015, when he has already been the manager of Patrol Police of Lviv! Besides it, the newspaper “Ratusha” wrote in September 2015 that Y. Zozulya had been detained in Ukrainian state custom-house “Yahodyn” on 13^th August 2014 because of his import of the medicaments with prohibited narcotic and psychotropic substances in Ukraine. So such people get influential assignments in “reformed” police.  

Further, I would like to write about big difference of the wages in the bound of present police system in Ukraine. On 4^th December 2015 Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Arsen Avakov announced the future salaries for the top management of National Police of Ukraine in 2016 year: 98000 UAH/month (~4246$) for the Head, 70000 UAH/month (~3033$) for the Deputies Head, nearly 30000 UAH/month (~1300$) for the leaders of structural and territorial police subdivisions, 6163 UAH/month (~267$) for new private police officers.

But as of 5^th December 2015, the official vacancy site of State Employment Centre of Ukraine (www.trud.gov.ua) proposed jobs with very small salaries for police officers. Thus, it’s open job offer for a guard in Kyiv Detention Facility with a salary 2500 hryvnias per month (~108$), the junior inspector in Odesa Detention Facility – 1450 UAH/month (~63$), junior inspector in the South Borstal in Odesa city – 2000 UAH/month (~87$), junior inspectors in Odesa Borstal – 2100-2400 UAH/month (~100-104$), a guard in the Department of Guard Police of Lviv region – 1580 UAH/month (~68$), a militian! in the Department of Guard Police of Lviv region – 2100 UAH/month (~100$), junior inspector in Lviv Borstal – 1600 UAH/month (~69$), a guard in Cherkasy Detention Facility – 1800 UAH/month (~78$), junior inspector in Chernihiv Borstal – 1450 UAH/month (~63$), junior inspector in Korosten Borstal in Zhytomyr region – 1550 UAH/month (~67$), junior inspector in P’yatykhatka Borstal in Dnipropetrovsk region – 2000 UAH/month (~87$), junior inspector in Vinnytsya Borstal – 1650 UAH/month (~71$), a guard in the Department of Guard Police of Volyn region – 1900 UAH/month (~82$), junior inspector in Kharkiv Borstal – 1800 UAH/month (~78$), junior inspector in Oleksiyivska Borstal in Kharkiv city – 2200 UAH/month (~95$), junior inspectors Derhachivska, Dykanivska and Kuryazka borstals in Kharkiv region – 1800 UAH/month (~78$), junior inspector in Oleksandriya Borstal in Kirovohrad region – 1700 UAH/month (~73$), junior inspector in Novyy Buh Borstal in Mykolayiv region – 1450 UAH/month (~63$).

I’ll also note several current food prices in Ukraine for better understanding of this unfair imbalance in as though “reformed police”. 1 egg – 2,20-2,25 UAH, 1 packet of the milk – 11-13 UAH, 1 long loaf – 7 UAH, 1 butter (200 grams)  – 17-18 UAH. How can so few money be proposed to private police officers for their work in the borstals, the detention facilities and the departments of guard police nowadays? How can the Head of National Police earn more than some junior inspector in a borstal in 68 times (comparing the wages in the amount of 98000 UAH and 1450 UAH)? And as Lviv police officers informed the journalists of “Lviv news” http://lvivexpres.com/news/2015/12/06/69918-policiyi-lvivskiy-oblasti-zatrymuyut-vyplatu-zarplatni on 6^th December 2015, the police officers of Lviv region hasn’t yet received their wages for October 2015!, except policemen from Lviv Patrol Police, who haven’t wages delay. May the legislation be complied well in the country, when such diverse attitude to the workers and so various salaries exist even in the bound of police system? How can so large payment be fixed for the top management of "new police", while Ukraine's official minimal wage is only 1378 hryvnias per month (~60$) indeed?