Reform objective
To make the data market legal and formal, increase business dealings, and improve Ukraine’s investment attractiveness.
Mechanism
Making financial statements of enterprises public as an array of data in a machine-readable format.
Instruments
Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine #835.
Proposals
Financial statements holders (the State Tax Service, the State Statistics Service, and the Ministry of Justice) shall comply with the requirements of the law on access to public information and publish such data with the support of the Ministry of Digital Transformation that is responsible for open data policy in Ukraine.
Generally, government agencies are more willing to publish information if it is explicitly specified in the Government Resolution. That is why for several years, the Better Regulation Delivery Office (BRDO) has advocated the inclusion of financial statements in the list of open data sets defined by the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine #835.
On March 3, 2021, the Government finally adopted amendments to the Resolution on open data. The BRDO welcomed this decision but pointed out that it needs to be implemented without delay.
Why is this essential for Ukraine?
The BRDO analyzed that up to 5 million people use open data-based services every month. These are well-known services such as SaveEcoBot (ecology), Monitor Estate (construction), EasyWay (road traffic), and others. More people will be able to get useful information if the state makes new data public, and financial statements are one of the priority data sets to make public.
The paradox is that the State Statistics Service does not meet the provisions of the law on access to public information allegedly due to the statistical information secrecy, and the Tax Service refers to the non-disclosure of taxpayer information.
However, the data that data holders are worried about is sold on the illegal market. They are very easy to find on illegal websites on the Internet — on the very first Google search page. This corruption scheme will disappear as soon as the data is published.
By using open data, it is possible to analyze potential counterparties and avoid fraudsters. According to PWC, losses due to cooperation with unfair counterparties can be up to 60% of the company’s turnover. The availability of such data will allow increasing the transparency of signing agreements with counterparties.