Ukrainian Public Outraged By Political Wealth Reveal

Before the 2014 Ukrainian Maidan revolution, political leaders controlled the vast majority of wealth in their country. After ousting former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and seizing his opulent residential compound, the marginalized working class vowed to institute reform on wealth distribution.

But what touts itself as an “anti-oligarch” regime has done little, if anything, to change that state of affairs.

One of the key demands of the revolution was to make amends to the lack of transparency in the wealth of political leaders, all in the name of trying to dissuade political leaders from hoarding their riches, explains The Guardian.

In keeping with the reforms laid out by the 2014 revolution, Ukrainian leaders electronically filed wealth declarations by the deadline of Oct. 30.

The results left Ukrainian citizens irate.

Catalogs of leaders’ wealth revealed luxury watches, valuable paintings, Faberge eggs, a church and millions in cash, reports Kyiv Post. In total, 410 Ukrainian lawmakers and their families own assets worth approximately $470.3 million.

Current Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko showed major disparities in his earnings and his assets. He said he earned a total of $2 million in 2015 but his official salary as president was only $4,842. He owns more than 100 companies in half a dozen countries.

Those discrepancies were consistent throughout wealth reports of individual Ukrainian leaders.

Ukrainian leaders have apparently stockpiled a surprising amount of foreign currency as well, including U.S. dollars and British pounds, in part because of the sharp decline of the hryvnia, according to The Guardian.

Reports indicate Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has a fund of around $1.7 million in a mix of U.S. dollars and euros.

According to Opora, the Ukraine’s largest election monitoring organization, 12 political leaders failed to file their declarations on time, and one filed a 1 trillion hryvnia declaration as a joke.

Going forward, leaders’ finances will be examined by Ukraine’s National Agency for Preventing Corruption that will investigate whether property and wealth were acquired legitimately.

Although the wealth declarations have sparked unrest, Ukrainian political activists believe the reports are a step forward to mending much larger political ills in the country.

Sources: Kyiv Post, The Guardian (2) / Photo credit: Vagia GR