Business Ombudsman Sums Up 2016

In 2016, the Business Ombudsman Council received 868 complaints from the entrepreneurs from all regions of Ukraine and closed 570 cases, which is 4 times as much as in 2015. The absolute majority of complainants – 95% – are satisfied with the result of working with the BOC’s team.
“The results the business achieved from cooperating with the Council are more than optimistic. In 2016 only, the financial impact of our help to the businesses equaled UAH 6 billion, and exceeded UAH 8.7 billion for the whole period of our operations”, informed Algirdas Šemeta, Business Ombudsman, during the press conference in Kyiv on February 3. 
Almost half of all complaints came from Kyiv (371). In descending order, complaints came from Kyiv (94), Kharkiv (51), Odesa (41), Dnipro (40) and Lviv (34) regions.
The majority (75%) of complaints were lodged by small and medium local (79%) businesses. Most active industries were wholesalers (20%), manufacturers (19%), agriculture market players (8%), individual entrepreneurs and representatives of the real estate market (7% each).
Most widespread subjects of complaints included the actions of the fiscal authorities (49%), law enforcement agencies (9%), legislation drafts and amendments (8%), actions of state regulators (8%) local councils and municipalities’ actions (7%). However, the dialogue with government agencies became much more efficient: the rate of recommendations implementation reached 87% by the end of 2016, and the State Fiscal Service, the traditional leader of complainees “anti-ranking”, implemented 91% of all recommendations provided by the BOC.
In 2016, the Business Ombudsman Council prepared 3 reports with systemic recommendations to the Government of Ukraine related to competition protection and oversight, reducing the risk of corruption and attracting investment to the construction industry, challenges for government and business in dealing with local government.
In 2016, Business Ombudsman signed 5 memoranda on cooperation with key government agencies that affect the business climate in Ukraine: the National Police, the National Agency on Corruption Prevention, the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, Kyiv City State Administration, National Anticorruption Bureau.
Business Ombudsman continued the program of his working visits to the regions of Ukraine, where he met with business and government representatives to discuss current problems of doing business in the regions. In 2016, Business Ombudsman visited 10 regions of Ukraine: Vinnytsia, Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Zakarpattya, Chernivtsi, Ternopil, Khmelnytsky, Sumy, Zhytomyr and Lugansk regions.
The QReport IV and a brief overview of 2016 is available here.