The Minister of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine has publicly signalled his impotence by complaining that he cannot put order in the Ukrainian agriculture
According to ukrrudprom, speaking on Savik Shuster’s Freedom of Speech talk show on a Ukrainian TV channel, Ukrainian Agricultural Policy Minister Roman Leshchenko said that it turns out there are some “shadow fields” on the territory of the “agricultural superpower” where sham firms grow unrecorded wheat and send it abroad, leaving the currency proceeds in Western banks, thereby depriving Ukraine of legitimate budget revenues.
“Today the agricultural sector generates half of Ukraine’s foreign exchange earnings and 25% of GDP. According to the audit, 25% of Ukrainian agricultural land is in the shadows, and accordingly a quarter of the revenue generated by the agricultural sector is also unaccounted for. The problem is that Ukraine does not fully monitor the chain of operations with grain”, – the minister said.
According to Leshchenko, “strict control, taxation system, open data space, minimization of the number of officials, and most importantly, a clear and consistent structure of the movement of goods” is required.
“Grain is grown in the field – we can see from a satellite what grows there, the cadastre number of the land plot – and the trader who buys this product has a clear origin of the goods. Where did you get the grain that you export? Did you come to the state to reclaim the VAT? Show the final course of this commodity”, – the agriculture official said.