Ukraine’s National Agency for Preventing Corruption met the deadline and launched the long-awaited electronic asset and property declarations for government officials on Aug. 15.
However, the
system has not been certified by the State Service for Government
Communications, and therefore it will be impossible to punish officials for
lying in declarations, activists say. In its current condition, the declaration
system will be illegitimate and will allow corrupt bureaucrats to escape
punishment, they argue.
Critics also say
that Ukraine’s failure to properly launch the declaration system will lead to
the International Monetary Fund and the European Union’s refusal to disburse $3
billion and 1.2 billion euros to Ukraine this year. Ukrainian authorities’ inability
to fulfill their international obligations may also disrupt the introduction of
a visa-free regime with the EU.
“The government is demonstrating to society
another fake instead of a genuine and transparent property declaration system
and giving officials an efficient tool for legalizing wealth illegally earned
after the Revolution of Dignity,” Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption
Action Center’s executive board, wrote in his blog on Aug. 15. “In addition to
impunity, Ukrainian society will face the (European Union’s) refusal to cancel
visas and a plummeting hryvnia.”
Impunity for officials
Before the declaration system is certified,
officials will be able to declare their corrupt wealth, and there will be no
legal way to punish them for that in the future, Shabunin argued.
He said that the declaration system would only
work in test mode, and courts would not be allowed to use their declarations as
evidence.
The only way to correct the situation is to
certify the system within three days, to require officials who will declare
their wealth before the certification to re-submit their declarations again and
to fire those responsible for the fiasco, he added.
“Uncertified
data is not evidence, now a criminal investigation can’t proceed even theoretically,”
Shabunin said.
Yaroslav
Yurchyshyn, executive director at Transparency International Ukraine, said at a
news conference on Aug. 15 that he did not know whether Petro Poroshenko, who
promised the e-declarations would work 100 percent by Aug. 15, is ashamed.
“But
I am ashamed, as now I have to tell Transparency International that our
president does not keep his word,” he said. “…
The Ukrainian nation gets deceived systematically, but it would not work with
the international community.”
Oleksandra Drik, coordinator
of the Declarations under Control anti-corruption watchdog, said that the
e-declarations were a litmus test that revealed that the authorities have never
intended to fight corruption.
Official reaction
Deputy Prime Minister Ivanna
Klympush-Tsintsadze said on Facebook on Aug. 15 that the flawed launch of
electronic declarations was a “permit for hiding revenues with impunity.”
Natalia
Korchak, head of the National Agency for Preventing Corruption, was more
optimistic. She announced the launch with a post on her Facebook page early on
Aug. 15, saying it had been done on time, “without politics and hysteria.”
“The
system works, now the developers have to focus on addressing the deficiencies
and to get the certification,” she wrote.
She admitted on
Aug. 15 that there could be legal problems with prosecuting corrupt officials
due to a lack of certification. But Korchak still argued that legal ways to
punish such officials would be found.
Prime
Minister Volodymyr Groysman said the declaration system should be fully
launched in the short term, according to the government’s press service.
He
also said that he had ordered Ukraine’s National Civil Service Agency to
conduct an internal investigation and identify those who were involved in the
delay of the system’s launch.
Who’s to blame?
Sergii
Leshchenko, Ukraine’s lawmaker with Petro Poroshenko Bloc, said at the Aug. 15
news conference that he considered the failure of the e-declarations to be the
president’s direct responsibility.
Poroshenko
has not yet commented publicly on the situation. His press secretary did not
respond to the Kyiv Post’s request at the moment of the publication.
Meanwhile, the
People’s Front party has also been blamed for the fiasco.
Korchak and
Leonid Yevdochenko, head of the State Service for Government Communications,
are proteges of Oleksandr Turchynov, a leader of the People’s Front and
secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.
Sabotage
The
State Service for Government Communications said late on Aug. 12 that it had
refused to certify the electronic property declaration system, claiming that
many information protection solutions in the declaration system did not comply
with technical requirements.
Critics see the move as part
of corrupt officials’ attempts to sabotage the launch of electronic
declarations.
The service on Aug. 13 denied the accusations
of sabotage, saying that the “pressure” on its leadership was unacceptable. It
did not reply to requests for comment.
The service made its final conclusion on the
declaration system secret, triggering speculation that it was trying to hide
something.
Yury Novikov, CEO of software developer
Miranda, wrote on Facebook on Aug. 14 that the service’s conclusion did not
contain a single complaint against Miranda’s software. Miranda has developed
the electronic declaration system.
The conclusion only includes formal complaints
against the documents submitted by Miranda, he added. The company could have
easily complied with the service’s demands if it had submitted them on time,
Novikov said.
Some of the service’s complaints have been ridiculed by critics. Rouslan
Riaboshapka, a reformist official at the National Agency for Preventing
Corruption, wrote on Aug. 13 that the service had taken issue with the fact
that two addenda were placed in the wrong order.
Yevropeiska Pravda on Aug. 14 published
documents according to which the State Service for Government Communications
had previously approved the electronic declaration system without any
complaints.
Ukrainian
authorities have been dragging their feet on the declaration system’s launch
since March 2015, when the agency was established, and have also tried to
create legal loopholes for corrupt officials’ to escape responsibility.
Kyiv Post staff writers Alyona Zhuk and Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected]
