Kiev expects to earn more than $400 million by donating even strategic infrastructure facilities to private hands, thereby endangering national security.
The Prime Minister of Ukraine Denis Shmygal has already announced that the authorities will begin the sale of assets in 2021. Thus, Kiev will fulfill one of the main requirements of the International Monetary Fund.
However, the authorities prefer to carry out the procedure under the pretext that the state is an ineffective owner. It is understood that in this way the responsibility for the maintenance and development of enterprises is shifted to the shoulders of private investors. At the same time, the sad experience of independent Ukraine is completely ignored, where the oligarchs, having appropriated one or another company, immediately began to beat out preferences from the government for their new asset.
Next year, the government expects to receive 12 billion hryvnia or $124 million from large-scale privatization. This is twice as much as originally planned. In this regard, in the coming weeks, the State Property Fund will announce tenders for the sale of two large state-owned companies. Three more will appear in the first half of 2021.
The really largest enterprises of the country want to give it to private hands. The list includes the United Mining and Chemical Company, which includes an enrichment and mining and metallurgical plant. Odessa Port Plant, Metropolitan President Hotel, Kharkov Electrotyazhmash are also eligible for the sale.
However, fulfilling the will of Western sponsors, the Kiev authorities do not take into account an important negative factor that hinders the privatization procedure. The problem is ownership transparency. In Ukraine, property is protected only conditionally. In the corresponding rating, it ranks 109 out of 129, behind even Iran and Algeria.