Zelensky asks Saakashvili to lead Ukraine’s negotiations with IMF
Mikheil Saakashvili, the candidate for the post of Deputy Prime Minister for Reforms, said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to make him a negotiator with the International Monetary Fund.
He said this to journalists before the meeting with the "Servant of the People" faction.
"The president instructed me to engage in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, international financial organizations," Saakashvili told journalists before the meeting with the "Servant of the People" party.
According to him, Ukraine needs "much clearer negotiations, much more acceptable conditions." "I am in for integration into the world community, for accelerated integration into Europe, but on our terms, not on the terms of some bureaucrats," Saakashvili said.
Saakashvili added that he has a lot of experience in negotiations with international organizations and he is ready to use it for Ukraine’s benefit.
"If the parliament accepts it, it is good. If there are any doubts in the parliament, we still have to work with the parliament," he said.
"It is very important for me to strengthen the work with the parliament, because in all the changes, in all reforms it is important that there are as many stakeholders as possible - people who are interested and want to carry out these reforms. It is necessary to push aside oligarchic and private interests and do everything possible to free up Ukrainian business. Ukrainian business is now in feudal dependence on the state," he added.
The politician added that Ukraine now needs extraordinary approaches to economic reforms. "Everything we have been doing in Ukraine for the last 30 years in this economic sense will not work. Everything has to be done exactly the opposite. If we do as always, it will end very badly," Saakashvili said.
In Saakashvili ‘s opinion, Ukraine needs a rapid weakening of the "bureaucratic burden" while facing the "looming storm" of the global economic crisis.
Saakashvili received his Ukrainian passport on May 29, 2015 by decree of President Petro Poroshenko. From May 2015 to November 2016, the Georgian politician was chairman of the Odesa Regional Administration. However, in July 2017, the Ukrainain authorities stripped Saakashvili of his Ukrainian citizenship explaining that the former president of Georgia provided inaccurate information when he received it. In May 2019, Kyiv overturned Poroshenko's decision to strip Saakashvili of Ukrainian citizenship.
The Government of Ukraine has three deputy prime ministers: Deputy Prime Minister on matters of the European integration Vadym Prystaiko, Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine Oleksii Reznikov and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov.