Volodymyr Zelenskiy declared his personal income for the first time since the outbreak of war with Russia, as part of his effort to increase transparency in his government.
In 2021, the year before Russia invaded Ukraine, Zelenskiy and his family reported income of 10.8 million hryvnia ($285,000), down 12 million hryvnia from the previous year, even as his income was boosted by the sale of $142,000 of government bonds, according to a statement on his website.
In 2022, the first year of the Russian invasion, the Zelenskiy family’s income fell further to 3.7 million hryvnia as he earned less income from renting real estate he owned because of the hostilities.
Even as the war allowed Ukrainian officials to withhold revealing sensitive personal information, Zelenskiy pushed to make them publicly declare assets. Increasing transparency and tackling graft are necessary for his country to ensure continued financial aid from its western allies, even as more than $100 billion of funds are held up due to political maneuvering inside US and EU.
I’d cap every civil servant income to 5 median salaries. If that’s too not enough, run your country better.
This is close to reasonable. But the argument politicians shouldn’t be paid well is bad. If you can’t earn a good income as a politician, then the only people that can be politicians are those that are already wealthy.
A working class person (or background) that can do well as a minister will struggle to put their family in the position of earning a reduced salary compared to a job in the private sector that will pay them more.
A good example of this problem is Rishi Sunak. His wife is a billionaire. He doesn’t need a salary and PM. He has extended internal combustion engine sales deadline, supported the war in Gaza as soon as a Gaza permit for BP was announced and spitefully stopped the expansion of high speed rail by selling off the land purchased for it. All these actions are in direct support of BP a company his wife directly benefits from.
It would be much better if our politicians earned their income through their salary. We have a dearth of talent due to low pay and high stress roles, only those that are swindling millions out of it are willing to endure.
Easy. If we find any income other than salary, linked to your decisions or not, that’s years or decades of manual labor for you. If your spouse is a millionaire, a business owner or even just a hired worker who doesn’t agree to the same level of scrutiny until the end of their lives, no politics for you. Leave politics to saints who serve their people for ideological reasons only. Politics is not supposed to be appealing.