Who will be the owner if the draft law on land market is not exactly ideal?
It is not clear even to the president who is the real owner of land today. And Yanukovych intends to take a very cautious approach to this problem. “We will be approaching step by step the establishment of a land market,” he says. “There are very many unknown questions.” At the same time, the president is saying over and over again that land should at last obtain an efficient owner. This statement sounds a bit unconvincing against the backdrop of endless “unknown questions.”
Meanwhile, a public debate is unfolding in this country on the draft land law. The State Land Resources Agency, together with a number of NGOs, is drawing up a brochure, Land Reform in Ukraine: 100 Questions and Answers,” which will be made available to all villagers of Ukraine. The agency says only the draft publication has so far been dispatched [who to? – Author]. As the head Serhii Tymchenko said rather vaguely the other day, “the agency experts’ task is to gather queries in all Ukrainian regions about the main provisions of the bill ‘On Land Market’ and to introduce proposals about this document, which are going to be published thereafter.”
But as soon as Monday, without waiting for 100 queries, Tymchenko entered into an indirect debate with people who are taking a dim view of the current version of land reform. In his words, they “have managed to grow rich by means of various schemes on the black market of land in the past few years, and colossal financial resources are going to the mass media as payment for discrediting the draft law.” (The Day has long and persistently been coming out for land reform and against the shady privatization of land, but it always spotlights different viewpoints, and is taking this statement with a pinch of salt. We could offer our readers any facts if they really exist.) The agency head thinks that enemies of land reform have so much distorted its purpose that share holders begin to fear of having their land being taken away. Tymchenko has the nerve to guarantee that this will not happen. In his words, the reform will turn land shares into the peasants’ property and the state will see to it that the land price does not go up. “If the state tracks down and severely punishes those who reduce our black earth to degradation, if we make sure that the quality of our soil improves, the price of such land will only be on the rise,” Tymchenko promises. He is convinced that there is no alternative to land reform, but he also admits that the draft law “On Land Market” is not ideal and intends to plug the existing “holes” in it with new legislative norms.
The head of the State Land Resources Agency used to say: “I pledge my word of honor that the draft law ‘On Land Market’ entirely serves the interests of people, not lobbyists.” He used to explain that “there are no vested interests who are lobbying it. The only interested group is Ukrainian peasants who own land shares.” Tymchenko is sure that this country really needs the law “On Land Market” because it will effect radical changes in the economy in general and agriculture in particular.
Verkhovna Rada Vice-Speaker Mykola Tomenko disagrees with Tymchenko. He is surprised with the draft brochure sent to the regions. “This document says that in January 2012 Ukraine will in fact see the launching of a secret land reform about which nobody, except for the informed people, knows anything,” he reassured journalists and said that the bill on land market is in parliament and has received a negative comment from the research and expert department. Besides, according to Tomenko, 100 Questions and Answers says that cultivable land will begin to be sold as early as January 1, 2012. The document also notes that in the first year after the lifting of the moratorium the land price will be low – an estimated 300 to 800 dollars per hectare. “Our duty is to thwart this nefarious scheme,” the vice-speaker emphasizes. “We will find a mechanism to draw support from parliament.”
Among those who have joined the chorus of the critics of the draft land law is the World Bank. Martin Raiser, WB Country Director for Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova, is afraid that Ukraine will lift the moratorium on land sales after adopting this law, when there will still be no proper conditions for the relevant market to function. This representative of international financial organizations seems to be mostly preoccupied with restrictions for such potential buyers as legal entities and foreign nationals. We can agree with Raiser that this will have a negative effect on investments. But will this also lead to the dispossession of land among the Ukrainian peasantry, even though all kinds of restrictions were planned for no other purpose than the elimination of this problem? The WB director also points out that the polls conducted among farmers show that most of them are not yet prepared for a market of land. Raiser concludes that Ukraine as a whole is not prepared, either, for this. He believes that the necessary conditions for an effective market of land in Ukraine may be created in the course of 2012. In his view, Ukrainian lawmakers and politicians should not speed up this reform because “there remains a very high risk that it will be carried out wrongly.”
