A state agency has blocked the launch of electronic asset and property declarations for Ukrainian government officials.
The declarations are a key anti-corruption tool to help prevent and detect corruption. They are also a condition for visa-free travel to the European Union.
As a result, the authorities may miss the Aug. 15 deadline for the launch.
Critics see the move as part of corrupt officials’ attempts to sabotage the launch of electronic declarations.
The State Service for Government Communications said late on Aug. 12 that it had refused to certify the electronic property declaration system. The service did not reply to requests for comment.
The service claimed that many information protection solutions in the declaration system did not comply with technical requirements.
The system is not capable of protecting certain information, specifically that related to the identification and authentication of officials submitting declarations, the service said.
The National Agency for Preventing Corruption, which is in charge of the declaration system, said on Aug. 13 it would try to quickly address the service’s concerns and launch the system by the Aug. 15 deadline.
Rouslan Riaboshapka, a top official of the agency, rejected the accusations by the State Service for Government Communications, saying that in its previous conclusions the service had stated that the system complied with all requirements.
He told the Kyiv Post he would publish documentary evidence if the sabotage continued.
The declaration system has been repeatedly successfully tested, including by auditing firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Riaboshapka said.
To assess the declaration system, the service has selected a state company that it completely controls and rejected the National Agency for Preventing Corruption’s proposal to choose Cryprosoft, an independent company, Riaboshapka said.
“This was done to make sure that the company controlled by the Service for Government Communications could make the conclusion that the service wanted,” he added.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Special Systems, a state company, said earlier on Aug. 12 it could not host the electronic declaration register because electricity supplies had been turned off. The company did not reply to a request for comment.
Mysteriously, the alleged blackout only affected the electronic declarations register, while other registers hosted by the company keep working, Riaboshapka said.
“This can’t be called anything but cynical and stupid sabotage of one of the most efficient anti-corruption tools,” he said.
The events followed statements by Leonid Yevdochenko, head of the State Service for Government Communications, and even President Petro Poroshenko that the system would be launched on time.
“Electronic asset declarations will be launched on Aug. 15,” Poroshenko wrote on Facebook on Aug. 11. “I’m not considering another date and can’t even hear of a delay! I’m asking you not to believe in rumors and speculation.”
Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, a Poroshenko loyalist, has lambasted the decision by the State Service for Government Communications.
“I don’t see any justifications for making such a decision two days before the scheduled launch of the electronic declaration system,” Groysman wrote on Facebook on Aug. 12. “Apparently some people don’t want this system, which has anti-corruption objectives, to work, and are jeopardizing not only society’s trust in the authorities but also Ukraine’s international reputation for that purpose.”
He said that everyone responsible, including the leadership of the National Agency for Preventing Corruption and the State Service for Government Communications, should be fired if the system is not launched on Aug. 15.
Despite the statements by Poroshenko and his allies, Sergii Leshchenko, a reformist lawmaker from the Poroshenko Bloc, argued that Poroshenko was responsible for the failure. Poroshenko’s spokesman Sviatoslav Tsegolko as usual did not reply to a request for comment.
The State Service for Government Communications is informally subordinated to Poroshenko, Leshchenko wrote on Facebook on Aug. 13.
“If Petro Poroshenko has political will, he can talk sense into the leadership of the State Service for Government Communications with just one phone call, and the electronic declaration system will be launched,” he said.
Meanwhile, the People’s Front party has also been blamed for the fiasco.
Yevdochenko and Natalia Korchak, head of the National Agency for Preventing Corruption, are proteges of Oleksandr Turchynov, a leader of the People’s Front and secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.
The party’s other leaders include ex-Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.
This is not the first time the introduction of electronic declarations is being sabotaged.
Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s executive board, warned in July that the authorities were considering launching electronic declarations in two stages to help some officials escape punishment.
Riaboshapka said in June that the leadership of the National Agency for Preventing Corruption was recruiting staff in a non-transparent manner and choosing the worst candidates with the lowest scores. Riaboshapka also told the Kyiv Post that the Cabinet had initially given the agency premises resembling a “concentration camp” with outrageous working conditions and even initially failed to allocate computers.
Ukrainian authorities have been dragging their feet on the declaration system’s launch since March 2015, when the agency was set up, and have also tried to create legal loopholes for corrupt officials’ declarations.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected].
