Given the number of political and legal torpedoes fired at Ukraine’s electronic asset and income declarations system for officials so far, it’s a wonder that it’s afloat.
The e-declaration system, finally launched on Sept. 1, almost two years after it was passed into law in October 2014, is now running. But it is technically crippled. Lawmakers are already preparing another attempt to sink the system through amending the anti-corruption law.
Civic activists say the authorities are intentionally hobbling the system, while the National Agency for Preventing Corruption and the State Service for Government Communications have blamed software developer Miranda and civil society representatives for problems.
The government agencies, which are controlled by President Petro Poroshenko and leaders of the People’s Front party, repeatedly failed to comment.
Ukrainians have a big stake in the system’s survival: Electronic declarations – a major anti-graft tool – are a key requirement of the European Union for it to cancel travel visas. Moreover, much-needed Western aid hangs on the system.
It been almost a decade since Poroshenko, now president, became foreign minister in 2009 and started promising a visa-free regime with the EU. The promises have so far failed to materialize.
“As new anti-graft tools are being created, the old corrupt system in all branches of government has been using every mechanism to block these processes,” Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, head of Transparency International Ukraine, told the Kyiv Post. “This includes delaying organizational processes and meddling in the selection of civil society members.”
Cabinet protégés
According to the 2014 anti-corruption law, the electronic declarations system is supposed to be overseen by the National Agency for Preventing Corruption.
However, the Cabinet was dragging its feet on the creation of the agency for a year-and-a-half.
Civic activists accused the Cabinet of sabotaging the process by trying to place its loyalists on the commission that selects the agency’s leadership, while at the same time excluding representatives from civil society.
In December 2015 the commission, packed with Cabinet protégés, appointed to the agency two top officials loyal to Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksandr Turchynov – Natalia Korchak and Oleksandr Skopych.
Viktor Chumak, who is seen as independent, was also appointed.
Korchak’s candidacy triggered a controversy because she used to be Yatsenyuk’s teacher.
The Reanimation Package of Reforms then said that the candidate selection competition had been held with violations, and called for its annulment. One of the violations is that Konstyantyn Vashchenko, a commission member and head of the National Civil Service Agency, voted for his own subordinate Oleksandr Skopych, a deputy head of the agency, an explicit conflict of interest. Chumak then refused to be appointed to the agency, saying that the selection competition had been illegal.
Legal loopholes
The e-declarations system has survived six or seven attempts to cripple its implementation this year alone.
In February Vadym Denysenko, a lawmaker from the Poroshenko Bloc, inserted loopholes into the anti-corruption law that would have allowed corrupt officials to escape punishment for lying in declarations. The amendments were subsequently canceled under Western pressure.
In March the commission selected another two top officials of the National Agency for Preventing Corruption. But only one of them, Rouslan Riaboshapka, was seen as independent. The other official chosen in March, Ruslan Radetsky, is an ally of Poroshenko, meaning that three out of the four officials thus far selected are linked to top politicians.
Further problems arose when the State Service for Government Communications failed to provide equipment for the e-declaration system from April through June.
Then on Aug. 9-10, a DoS attack was launched on the declaration system from an address used by the State Service for Government Communications, according to the Yevropeiska Pravda online newspaper.
Next, the service on Aug. 12 refused to certify the electronic declaration system developed by software firm Miranda, arguing that it did not comply with technical requirements. Critics said, however, that the service was only looking for an excuse to block the e-declarations system, since it had previously approved the software.
The National Agency for Preventing Corruption created another problem when it launched the uncertified system on Aug. 15. As a result, punishing officials for lying in declarations became impossible, since evidence from the uncertified system will be inadmissible to the courts. Thus, officials would be able to hide and legalize their corrupt wealth.
On Aug. 31, the State Service for Government Communications again blamed all problems on software firm Miranda, saying that it would be banned from servicing the e-declaration system. But after the service took over the system and certified it, the system failed to function when it was formally launched for the second time on Sept. 1: It was initially impossible to upload declarations to the site.
Technical glitches
The first e-declarations were uploaded on Sept. 4, but numerous technical problems remained. Moreover, some officials sidestepped the law by saying in their statements that their family members had refused to provide information about their wealth.
“The government, instead of testing the system before its launch, was looking for excuses not to launch it,” Yurchyshyn said. “Instead of aiming to be effective, the civil service just aims to explain why its efforts are failing. It imitates work instead of yielding results.”
The EuroOptimists, a reformist group of lawmakers, said on Sept. 6 that the technical glitches could lead the system to fail, and it would be impossible to punish officials for lying in declarations.
The next attempt to sabotage the system started on Sept. 6, when People’s Front lawmaker Tetiana Donets sponsored a bill limiting the types of property and income listed in e-declarations, and banning public access to them.
The Verkhovna Rada is also expected to consider a bill exempting from criminal liability those who pay a 5 percent tax on their declared wealth.
Meanwhile, the Constitutional Court, whose judges are being investigated for helping former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych usurp power and for taking bribes from him, is considering a motion to block the e-declaration system as unconstitutional. And more attempts to scuttle the e-declaration system seem certain to follow.
“The e-declaration system is a nightmare for our politicians and corrupt officials, who will never be able to explain where they got their wealth,” Chumak told the Kyiv Post.
