In the fight against corruption, we as a whole society have again stepped on the same rake. We began to fight not against corruption, but against corrupt officials.
The difference is that corruption is a liquid. You can pour it into a glass, or a decanter, or just on the floor - it will readily take any shape without changing its volume. Catching corrupt officials one by one is just pulling pebbles out of a lake.
Yes, it’s beautiful when another Grinkevich lies in his shorts on the floor in handcuffs. The public applauds, telegram channels post news with lightning bolt emojis, journalists fight for inside stories from the court.
But tomorrow, instead of one Grinkevich, there will be another. The lake will not change shape if you remove a stone from it.
The fight against corruption looks different. She is not interesting to society. There's no show. Special forces don't break down anyone's doors.
It’s just that some ordinary person with an uninteresting position asks himself a question: but, for example, how is it that we sell X amount of excise stamps for alcohol every year, and about one and a half times as many bottles for alcohol are produced? The numbers don't conflict with each other a little. And as a rule, when the numbers don't break, someone becomes wealthier - and, as a rule, illegally.
Therefore, in theory, such a person should understand the situation (maybe we do so much for export? Or does it break during transportation? Or does the glass crack massively due to temperature changes?), and then make calculations and propose a solution on how to close the circuit. And all this will happen for a long time, boringly, and completely uninteresting for the audience. Figures, reports, working groups - no show, no knocked down doors, except maybe in the smoking room during recess.
But this is precisely what the fight against corruption will be. Not with a single corrupt official whose place will be taken by another, but with a system that allows officials and security forces to turn a blind eye and open their wallets.
An example from another industry. You bring a tanker with diesel fuel to the port, bought at a price on the exchange, plus a premium, plus pay the trader who will deliver it by sea. All prices are transparent, everything is on paper, thousands of tankers are unloaded and loaded this way every day.
But the state of Ukraine, which looks at you with the stern eyes of an energy customs officer, tells you that no exchange here interests anyone, and they can clear you through customs only at the price that he, the customs officer, has on a piece of paper. Well, or they can, but here is another piece of paper, and on it is no longer an indicative, but a small amount that needs to be transferred to him in US dollars.
Because he, the customs officer, knows very well that you and your tanker are now hanging on a tripwire ideal for corruption. Either you pay officially, but at a clearly inflated rate, which eats up not only your profit, but also your desire to do business in Ukraine, or you give a bribe, which is less than the overpayment. You don’t have time, because every extra day of idle time of an unloaded tanker in the port costs you from 5 to 15 thousand dollars - there is a queue for the tanker, it must work and bring money to the owner.
And you go and pay. Because the law gives the customs officer such power.
Yes, he can be detained while receiving a bribe. You can twist his arms, you can judge him and even put him in prison. But the next day another official will work there. And he will do the same. Because the corrupt official has changed, but the corruption remains.
Or it is possible to force a decision at the state level that customs clearance occurs exclusively based on the price on the international exchange. Or the average price on several exchanges. Not a penny cheaper, not a penny more expensive. That's all. And the official’s power disappeared into thin air. And there will be no more corruption - at least here, in this narrow issue. It will also be possible to cut several dozen customs officers, because there is less paperwork to do.
But it’s long, tedious and uninteresting. And no show.
Therefore, do not be surprised when the arrests of corrupt officials continue for years and decades. The pebbles will not change the shape of the lake.
This lake can only be drained.
