At a time when publication of the so-called “Panama Papers” has revealed the financial evasions of some presently at the pinnacle of power in Ukraine, you’d think the last thing ordinary Ukrainians would want is a whiff of fiscal self-dealing from its government. Yet that is what the Poroshenko administration has just done, and the aroma is unmistakable.

At the ostensible suggestion of its own ministry of finance (more likely, at the demand of higher ups in the government), Ukraine’s cabinet recently approved regulations to overhaul the system through which banks handle payments to government employees.