State Traffic Inspection disbanded as administration seeks to end corruption (07/17/05)

State Traffic Inspection disbanded as administration seeks to end corruption

by Yana Sedova
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - There is an old joke about a Ukrainian traffic officer who won $1 million in a lottery. When asked what he would do with the money, he answered that he would buy an intersection and work the post for his own satisfaction.

The hidden motif of the joke is that nothing is more powerful than habit. Unfortunately, as part of their habit, Ukrainian traffic officers are notorious for their corrupt conduct.

"We give them bribes," said Volodymyr Dudnyk, 45, who has driven a taxi cab for 27 years. "Drivers are those who make the offer. The fixed rate (a bribe) for minor offenses is $2 for us taxi drivers."

Hence, one of the many reasons Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko signed a presidential order on July 19 to eliminate Ukraine's State Traffic Inspection, or the DAI as it is known based on its Ukrainian acronym.

The purpose of the decree is to reorganize a police force that is corrupt beyond repair, government officials said.

During the next three months, the Ministry of Internal Affairs will divide the DAI into two separate divisions: the Traffic Security Service and the Patrol Service. They will remain under the ministry's jurisdiction.

The Traffic Security Service will regulate traffic, deal with traffic jams, register cars, issue license plates, administer driving tests and provide escort services to Ukraine's president, prime minister and the Verkhovna Rada chairman, and their children, said Hennadii Hrebniov, the chair of the Office of Preventive Work in the State Traffic Inspection.

The Patrol Service would focus more on monitoring civil order on the roads and on sidewalks, patrolling designated territories and preventing criminal activity before it occurs, he said.

There are about 23,000 officers in DAI: 8,000 of them will enter the Patrol Service, and the others will join the Traffic Security Service.

"If they refuse, they will choose another department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to work for," Mr. Hrebniov said. "Our officers have a universal education. Nobody will be fired."

The relationship between DAI officers and Ukrainian drivers could best be described as a perpetual confrontation.

Drivers had developed a system to warn each other about DAI posts on the road. For example, if a Ukrainian was driving along a road and saw cars coming from the opposite direction blinking their lights, this meant there was a DAI post several hundred meters ahead.

Mr. Dudnyk told a story about a Ukrainian friend, having gone to Canada, who saw a small car approaching and blinking its headlights on the opposite side of the road. An old woman, probably about 80 years old, was driving the car and warning him about an upcoming police post.

"Our guys brought this tradition to Canada!" he laughed.

Ukrainian drivers also equip their cars with radar detectors which help them detect DAI speed traps.

"When I hear its signal, I immediately become a law abider," Mr. Dudnyk said. "So, the detector makes me a cultured person who obeys the law. That is our nature."

Beyond mere corruption, drivers consider the present system of punishment rather complicated. When a DAI officer writes a report about a minor offense, he sends it to a court which rules on a fine.

But only 25 percent of drivers actually pay these fines. The rest don't even bother to show up in court, and law-enforcement officials don't want to waste time retrieving $2 and $3 fines.

Given that the fines are so small, Mr. Hrebniov said he wonders why drivers are in the habit of giving bribes.

However, Mr. Dudnyk saw the problem differently.

"People are too busy," he said. "They do not have time for court hearings. It is much easier to give a bribe and quickly go away."

So, in addition to structural reforms, fines may increase soon to $10-$15, said Minister of Internal Affairs Yurii Lutsenko. If drivers fail to pay their recorded fine, the fine will rise continuously until payment is made.

However, drivers think this will not solve the problem. Many of them are sure that those who drive expensive cars will keep violating the traffic rules and getting away with it.

As evidence of the lack of enforcement and order, Mr. Dudnyk said he sees "three or four car accidents every day." He added, "Things were different during the times of the Soviet Union. "We feel a lack of discipline nowadays."

During DAI's last several years, many officers were afraid to stop and fine drivers in expensive cars, or those with special license plates that indicated they were national deputies, or those with vanity plates that indicated wealth.

"These hot shots were often well-connected people," Mr. Dudnyk said. "One phone call to the brother-godfather-or-something and the officer is fired."

Corruption and lack of security on Ukrainian roads became a pain in the neck for Mr. Yushchenko and the internal affairs minister.

"I've told the minister three times: if the DAI officers hide behind bushes, the DAI won't exist any longer in this country," Mr. Yushchenko said at a meeting of all top Internal Affairs Ministry officials in Ivano-Frankivsk on July 18.

During the last six months, 55 cases of corruption were examined, Mr. Hrebniov said. In 27 of them DAI officers were brought to trial; six cases were closed because of unconfirmed facts; the remainder are in a pre-trial inquiry stage.

Many corrupt police officers are being prosecuted, but still the system doesn't work properly, Mr. Lutsenko told 1+1 TV on July 27. He promised to double the number of criminal cases filed against them.

In order to catch the offenders, the ministry bought 100 hidden video cameras, he said. "I warn all police officers that the fight against corruption has been strengthened," Mr. Lutsenko explained.

"We want bribery to become impossible," said Mr. Hrebniov, adding that he believes in a strictly controlled system.

Despite the planned overhaul, many Ukrainian drivers do not believe that anything will change and refer to Soviet times.

"A DAI officer was a god on the road," said Anatolii Rohach, 37, who has been working as a taxi driver for the last 16 years. "Only if we have one law for ministers, deputies and us ordinary people, will we have order."

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