Ukraine is facing a real threat of losing its parliament.
One of the key tasks for the enemy is to destroy the government bodies in the country, including the parliament. But with this task, we are doing quite well ourselves. And we are destroying the parliament with populism.
Raising the salaries of MPs is a very unpopular issue, and the parliament itself will not go for it because it realizes the kind of discussion that will start in the media. But the price we pay for playing populism can be very high for every citizen.
The head of the “Servant of the People” faction, David Arakhamia, has already talked about how there are several dozen MPs who want to resign: “In fact, the number of people who want to leave the parliament is much larger. We no longer let people go… We say that we simply will not vote for it because people must stay until the end of the current parliamentary term and adopt the laws necessary for the state.”
Collecting votes in the hall is becoming increasingly difficult even on those issues that are very necessary for us for Eurointegration and are included in the package of requirements from our partners. The same story applies to issues related to national security: banning Moscow priests or cleansing local councils of deputies from banned parties. If we don’t raise salaries, the situation will worsen, and in a few months, it may become irreversibly bad.
Let’s compare the numbers.
The head of the Verkhovna Rada’s apparatus, Vyacheslav Shtuchny, received almost 3 million hryvnias for 2022. For comparison, for the same year, President Volodymyr Zelensky received about 300,000 hryvnias. That’s ten times less than the head of the Verkhovna Rada’s apparatus.
A person making decisions like the president in times of war cannot receive 300,000. But there is a question of whether the head of the Apparatus should really receive 3 million, and whether he earns this money (for understanding, this is the entire salary of six heads of parliamentary committees combined).
It is worth noting that the employees of the Verkhovna Rada’s Apparatus are protected by transitional provisions in 2024, and the salary reform in the civil service (70% salary and 30% bonus) does not apply to them.
There is an imbalance in parliament with salaries across the board.
If we take the head of the secretariat of the committee on social policy, she received over 1.3 million hryvnias, while at the same time, the committee chairman received barely 0.5 million.
The most affected in this system are honest and decent MPs who do not have large fortunes. Salaries in anti-corruption agencies are also higher than those of MPs.
The question arises: what kind of system are we building?
If we do not address the issue now, this problem will also affect the quality of the next parliament. Who will run to work for such money? Moreover, the attitude towards MPs in society is negative. However, MPs themselves are largely to blame for this.
What does it threaten?
Halyna Tretyakova
People's Deputy of the "Servant of the People" party, Chair of the Committee on Social Policy and Protection of the Population
Independence is the ability to make autonomous decisions, ones that do not require external instructions or commands. The independence of a state is the autonomy of its politicians, upon whom sovereignty depends. And what constitutes the independence of a politician? It is the ability to independently define goals and objectives, the ability to address issues and problems on one's own, and the freedom to choose one's behavior. If deputies do not act independently, independence cannot be claimed, and thus, the sovereignty of the state will be threatened.
The same problem exists with the deputies of local councils. Most citizens are not even aware that they do not receive any compensation for their work.
In 2019, after the parliamentary elections, the first thing the author of the material addressed to the then head of the “Servant of the People” party, Oleksandr Korniienko, who is now the deputy speaker, was to ensure that before the local elections in 2020, local council deputies would receive compensation for their work.
Where can we find honest people who will be willing to work, for example, in the Kyiv City Council, where not only the council but also the budget committee sits for dozens of days? Who can afford to volunteer for the community for 80-90 days a year (this is without working in receptions and in the constituency) for five years?
But then, as now, the authorities understood that the decision would be unpopular, especially before the local elections in 2020, and could affect the party’s rating… And they didn’t resolve anything. In addition to this, the traditional phenomenon persists – the sale of party franchises in elections. This is when the party brand is handed over to local developers or business mayors so that they can install their deputies in the councils.
So Alexander Dubinsky, who is suspected of state treason, successfully implemented the “Servant of the People” party franchise in Kyiv region during the local elections. At the end of last year, the party withdrew Dubinsky’s “cans” from the regional council. The price of populism combined with the absence of party building yields terrible results. And, by the way, speaking of the same Kyiv region and local government, the salaries of some heads are several times higher than the salaries of heads of committees of the Verkhovna Rada. This is what populism leads to.
Until we start paying appropriate funds to Members of Parliament, until local council deputies receive proper compensation for their work – the resources of our country (budget, land, water) will be constantly plundered and exploited.
What does it threaten?
Yaroslav Yurchyshyn
People's Deputy of the "Voice" party, Chairman of the Committee on Freedom of Speech
Competitive salaries and the inevitability of punishment for corruption can indeed improve the efficiency of the parliament and local councils. Many competent professionals refuse to enter public office because, on the one hand, their financial assets are scrutinized more closely, yet their salaries are not competitive compared to what they can earn in other sectors. Therefore, inexperienced individuals or those with undisclosed (often corrupt) sources of income end up in power. Populism in this matter works against the interests of society: it's easier to buy a cheap deputy. This is, and will continue to be, exploited by oligarchs, corrupt officials, and often external enemies.
But before the war, we were losing both renewable and non-renewable resources. And during the war, we could lose the state because the parliament won’t function for long under such conditions.
