Ernst & Young regularly carries out large-scale surveys of corporate employees across a range of countries on issues such as ethics and corruption in the workplace.

In the latest Global Fraud Survey (PDF), which took place at the end of 2016, 88% of Ukrainian employees thought that bribery and corrupt practices are widespread in business in this country.

Incidentally, this figure was 85% in the 2013 survey, the last year of “normalcy” before the Maidan. It was also at 80% in 2015. In short, overthrow of the “kleptocratic” Yanukovych made no difference to these figures. Zilch.

Now to be sure, the E&Y survey is more a measure of corruption perceptions than a measure of corruption itself, and the two are not necessarily the same. Still, there is definitely a correlation – according to Transparency International’s direct surveys of bribery incidence, the Ukraine consistently competes with Moldova for the status of Europe’s most corrupt nation, while the country with the lowest (best) ranking on the E&Y survey, Denmark, had 0% of respondents saying they had to pay a bribe in the past year when they were queried about it.

Overall, this is just one more piece of evidence to the effect that the Maidan has failed to solve the main problem that it set for itself.

In other news, Central Bank head Valeria Gontareva has offered up her resignation (after having disappeared from the limelight several weeks ago). In her three years of office under Poroshenko, she and her relatives appear to have done well for thmselves, like many bureaucrats throughout the post-Soviet world. Still, but many accounts, she has done a pretty good job; some 40% of financial institutions have been closed, including many offshoring funnels and pocket banks, while most of the rest have been forced to clarify their ownership structures. But with mounting uncertainties over the future of IMF credits piling up and an emerging crisis over fraud at Kolomoysky’s Privatbank before its nationalization, I suppose now is as good a time as any to part ways.

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E&Y: Corruption perception by country

Question: Can you indicate whether you think it applies, or does not apply, to your country/industry or whether you don’t know?

Answer: Bribery/corrupt practices happen widely in business in this country.

Rank Country % 1 Ukraine 88 2 Cyprus 82 3 Greece 81 4 Slovakia 81 5 Croatia 79 6 Kenya 79 7 South Africa 79 8 Hungary 78 9 India 78 10 Egypt 75 11 Slovenia 74 12 Nigeria 73 13 Italy 71 14 Bulgaria 68 15 Turkey 67 16 Russia 66 17 Spain 64 18 Czech Republic 63 19 Portugal 60 20 Serbia 57 21 Jordan 53 . Average of all participants 51 22 Latvia 51 23 Ireland 47 24 Lithuania 47 25 Germany 43 26 Saudi Arabia 43 27 Poland 38 28 Belgium 36 29 Austria 32 30 Estonia 32 31 Romania 31 32 France 28 33 UAE 27 34 UK 25 35 Netherlands 23 36 Oman 19 37 Sweden 18 38 Switzerland 18 39 Finland 16 40 Norway 10 41 Denmark 6

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