BY
At the beginning of the month an
entry appeared relating to
the proposed privatisation of several hundred Ukrainian State owned enterprises
in the near future.
Despite the many questions raised in that entry, a core theme was that
subsidies have to end post haste, along with the tradition of government bad
debt write offs/forgiveness and never ending recapitilisation, all of which
simply feed the oligarchy one way or another. The income from sales of
these enterprises to the State budget being a secondary consideration to the
savings in subsidies.
“Deoligarchisation” in Ukraine remains a very subjective thing.
Not only have the oligarchy started to recover from their weakened
position post Euromaidan and its immediate legacy due to a lack of reform
momentum whilst the public were hungry for it and prepared for whatever pain
was necessary, the oligarchy still commands an abnormal share of GDP,
employment, political influence and media control. (Although like much of
the media, to support loss making news it takes an oligarch to finance it.)
Thus the degree of “deoligarchisation” is subjective.
Since the above entry, several of the planned privatisations for 2015
have been postponed until 2016 pending the Verkhovna Rada passing certain
legislation.
There also appears to be a distinct
lack of knowledge regarding how
to go about privatising State assets in a transparent and competitive fashion.
“Prime Minister of Ukraine appealed to the
representatives of the international community in Ukraine with the request to
support the privatization process with appropriate expertise.”
This statement, technically at least, is more than a little misleading.
Having spent two days at the Odessa Finance Forum with senior
representatives of the NBU, Finance Ministry and major Ukrainian banks, there
is certainly the expertise amongst the Ukrainian ranks to manage privatisation
in a textbook “western” manner – the issue is more likely to be one of having
foreign input to allay any claims of nefariousness and thus avoid the folly of
previous privatisations and re-privatisations when governments changed and
didn’t like the original outcomes.
Other originally scheduled privatisations remain on course for October
and December 2015.
The October and December privatisations are in fact being
part-privatisations – and that may very well add to the reoligarchisation of
Ukraine, rather than the deoligarchisation of Ukraine.
Why?
The following
announcement was made last
week- “The State Property Fund
of Ukraine (SPF) has once again revised the privatization schedule for 2015 and
now plans to sell 25% of shares in power generating companies DTEK
Dniproenergo, DTEK Zakhidenergo and Donbasenergo, and 25% of shares in
Sumyoblenergo and Odesaoblenergo on the stock exchange in October.
The decision is stipulated in fund resolution No. 1345
of September 14 which was published in the Vidomosti Pryvatyzatsii newspaper.
According to the report, in November 5% of shares in
Odesa Port-Side Plant, Sumykhimprom, Odesa and Kherson combined heat and power
plants will be sold, along with 5% of shares in Zaporizhiaoblenergo, which has
not yet had any of its shares sold, and 25% of shares in DTEK Dniprooblenergo
and Kyivenergo, which will be left in state ownership after privatization
tenders.
The fund plans to sell 25% of shares in DTEK
Donetskoblenergo, 46% of shares in Cherkasyoblenergo, and 16.537% of shares in
Zasiadko Mine on the stock exchange in December.”
How does this possibly reoligarchise Ukraine?
Quite simply, aside from other sovereign governments, or those eilite
large companies with close relationships and direct channels within their
governments, who is going to buy a minority share in entities that will be at
the directional whim of the Ukrainian government of the day?
The answer is only those that can directly influence the Ukrainian
government of the day – and that remains the existing oligarchy!
As foreign governments and large foreign corporations are not likely to
be excited about buying minority shares ranging from 5% to 46% in Ukrainian
State owned companies with the major shareholder (Government of Ukraine) being
historically either unpredictable or predatory or both (and there is nothing to
suppose that cannot return with any election) it seems likely that only an
oligarchy that already influences the government will have any serious interest
in buying minority shares in State owned enterpirses.
After all, holding minority shares in State owned enterprises is nothing
new for the oligarchy – and neither is using their influence within the
Verkhovna Rada to insure that their interests overrule the interests of the
State majority shareholder.
Part privatisation is like being half pregnant as far as Ukraine is
concerned. It is neither one thing nor another.
It will certainly not remove the subsidies that have to stop.
Neither will the bad debt write offs/debt forgiveness or recapitalisation
cease. This in turn does nothing to encourage the quality management
required to make many of the State owned enterprises profitable. It does little
to attract genuine FDI and thus provide for new foreign market entrants to
dilute the oligarchical influence on GDP.
As minority shares privatisation in State owned enterprises is likely to
attract far more oligarchy attention than foreign attention, this in turn will
lead to the reinforced perception of (nefarious) “business as usual” by way of
the Ukrainian constituency perception of the current governing elites.
There is nothing wrong with Government Ukraine retaining a “golden share”
to insure no sensitive asset will see shares being sold on in bulk to hostile
interests (ie a “Veto” share in such circumstances), but otherwise if a State
owned enterprise has been scheduled for privatisation – privatise it, at least
to the point where the Ukrainian State is the minority shareholder that will
then benefit from serious external interest, quality external management and
technological investment.
Preferably simply privatise those State assets scheduled to be sold
entirely – and make a clear break with the Soviet mental hangover relating to
privatisation. Create independent regulators if necessary, and if so
paranoid as to be concerned about the regulators becoming corrupt rent-seekers,
place some foreigners amongst the regulator management.
Part privatisation of State owned enterprises when reforming the
Ukrainian economy will probably equate to being half pregnant from the
perception of foreign investors. Allowing part privatisation to become
the reoligarchisation of Ukraine will be a political, economic and quite
possibly social disaster.
Can being half pregnant give birth to a reformed Ukrainian economy and
liberal free market? Probably not!
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