On August 2, in the morning the official website of the Ukrainian president announced that Viktor Yanukovych had signed the Law “On the State Land Cadastre.” This law, voted for on July 7, 2011 virtually cancels the acts of ownership of land and introduces the unified land database, namely, the state land cadastre. The abovementioned law provides that the database will have the cadastre number of the lots, their location, the descriptions of their boundaries and surfaces, the information about the quality of the soil, their purposes, the information about restrictions on their use, the standard and pecuniary valuation, etc. All this information, except for personal data, will be made publicly available. It will be located at a special portal of the central executive body on land resources’ official website.
The law guaranties an absolutely free access to the land cadastre database. However, only partial access does not require payment. One can copy and print out the information on the administrative districts, the cadastre numbers of lots, their boundaries and purposes, the division of the land among the owners and users, their use restrictions and the data summary on the land quality and quantity assessment. The information about the standard and pecuniary valuation, the lots, the parts of the land under the easement, the sublease contracts, the coordinates of the turning points of cadastre objects’ boundaries and the land evaluation has to be paid for according to the state “price list.”
However, not everyone who is ready to pay for the necessary “land” information can have it. The law provides that only restricted list of users have the right to request the information from the land cadastre, namely, landowners and land users, their authorized persons or heirs, persons who benefit from restrictions or their authorized persons, the state government and the local governments as well as persons having the license for the land management, valuation and land tenders. In order to do this, one has to put in the document confirming the service payment and an application that the cadastre registrar will process within ten working days.
The Law “On the State Land Cadastre” except for its several articles will become operative since January 1, 2012.
It’s the first quite decisive step taken in order to create the land market in Ukraine. In order to remove the moratorium on buying and selling the Ukrainian black earth which is currently in force, the state has to meet two peremptory conditions: to adopt a law on the state land cadastre and the land market. As we can see, the first one is already passed and signed and the second one is on the way. We remind our readers that on July 19 of this year the government registered in the Parliament the Bill “On the Land Market” No.001-1.
It seems that the present government has seriously got down to the land reform. A number of governments have been trying to make it for a long time, yet since all their attempts were inconsequent and unsystematic, they did not achieve any tangible results. The government headed by Mykola Azarov managed to set the stage for the land market within a rather short period of time. No wonder since the current government pins great hopes on the investment potential of Ukrainian black earth. The president emphasized it many times saying that “the Ukrainian earth is the resource that will attract the investors.”
However, the less time is left before the moratorium removal, the more the Ukrainian farmers fear it. According to the last public opinion poll carried out by the World Bank, about half of the heads of the agricultural enterprises and farmers (43.5 percent) are against the moratorium removal (it should be noted that back in 2010 only 35 percent of the respondents held this opinion), the general number of the land market antagonists among the land share owners is 51.5 percent (this rate hasn’t changed significantly since 2010).
Are there any reasons to doubt the “good” intentions of the reformers and the fact that the land reform will be a change for better for most of the people? Yes, probably, since today nearly all the villages demonstrate awful consequences of the past “agrarian” reforms. Let us recall the voucher privatization that has led to the property stratification of the society unseen in the civilized countries when 1 percent of the people have become the owners of 90 percent of the state property and continue robbing the country. For 20 years of the Ukraine’s independence, it has managed to grow five dollar billionaires and virtually beggared most of the people. Today the state is unable to provide the constitutional right for the descent living standards, there’s no money to treat the fatal illnesses…
During his visit to the rented private enterprise Zoria in Kherson oblast Yanukovych emphasized: “The main purpose of the land reform is to bring the promising landowners.” Undoubtedly, this idea is extremely important since the current situation in the Ukrainian agriculture needs an effective landowner. But who is this owner? Does the state have the detailed portrait of the people who will receive the state riches? It’s obvious that the Ukrainian farmers are unable to become the “promising landowners” mentioned by Yanukovych without the help from the state. Can we call the farmers working the land with horses and bare hands “effective landowners”? The farmers who have to give the shirt off their back to buy seeds and fertilizers? The farmers who store the harvest dug into the ground or in the wooden boxes?
We should recall the state property reform of the 1990s. Ukraine was also looking for the effective owners back then. As a result, it acquired a “malignant tumor” called the “wild capitalism” in economic terms. Let us hope that the state leaders can learn from the mistakes and that the land reform will really bring to Ukraine an effective landowner and not another barbarian.
