Reformer of the week – Martha Boersch
Martha Boersch, a former U.S. federal prosecutor, was the runner-up during a Verkhovna Rada vote for an auditor of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine on July 13.
Boersch successfully prosecuted ex-Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, who was sentenced in 2006 by a San Francisco court to nine years in prison and a $10 million fine.
However, President Petro Poroshenko and his supporters preferred reputedly less independent candidates for the auditor’s job.
In May Mykhailo Buromensky, an alleged loyalist of the authorities, was appointed as a NABU auditor by the Cabinet of Ministers.
In February, the pro-Poroshenko majority unsuccessfully tried to push through parliament the appointment of another loyalist, Briton Nigel Brown, as a NABU auditor, without the anti-corruption committee’s approval. Brown on July 12 admitted that he had been invited to parliament for the vote on his candidacy by Artur Herasimov, the head of the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko faction.
The Anti-Corruption Action Center believes Buromensky and Oleksandra Yanovska, another pro-government candidate, fail to meet an International Monetary Fund requirement that a NABU auditor must have “experience in anti-corruption investigations in other countries.”
Anti-reformer of the week – Oleksandra Yanovska
The pro-government majority in the Verkhovna Rada on July 13 unsuccessfully tried to install lawyer Oleksandra Yanovska as an auditor of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine.
Yanovska got the biggest number of votes among other candidates for the job of auditor, but failed to pass the 226 vote threshold required for appointment. However, attempts to appoint Yanovska are likely to continue.
Since the leadership of the NABU can be fired as a result of an audit, President Petro Poroshenko has been accused of trying to install auditors loyal to him so that he can control the bureau.
Yanovska has been accused of having links to the Presidential Administration, which she denies. She said on July 12 that she had last visited the Presidential Administration a couple of months ago to discuss legislative initiatives.
Oleksandra Ustinova from the Anti-Corruption Action Center and Oleksiy Hrytsenko from the AutoMaidan civic group said that representatives of the Presidential Administration, including Dmytro Yelmanov, had asked them in 2016 to make sure that Yanovska joined the civil society watchdog that oversees the NABU, and they declined. The Presidential Administration could not immediately comment.
Yanovska did not support NABU Chief Artem Sytnyk when he was running for the job in 2015. She was nominated by the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, which has regularly criticized the NABU.
