Despite repeated requests, the Presidential Administration has failed to provide to the Kyiv Post -- or anyone else, to the newspaper's knowledge -- with a list of 2,702 former officials that President Petro Poroshenko says were convicted of corruption over the past year.
Ukrainian authorities have faced intense criticism for a stumbling anti-corruption drive that has failed to catch or convict any of the major allies of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, much less bring them to court, despite staggering evidence of murder and multibillion-dollar theft.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published on June 10, Poroshenko wrote: “Over the past year, 2,702 former officials have been convicted of corruption.”
The administration’s department for providing access to public information said on June 22 in an e-mail that the Kyiv Post request for a list of the officials, which had been sent on June 17, did not comply with the law on access to public information.
“According to clause 1 of article 19 of the above-mentioned law, a request for information is a person’s request asking an agency that has information to give public information that it possesses,” the department said, seemingly implying that it did not have any information on the 2,702 former officials.
The request has been forwarded to the administration’s chief information policy department, the department for providing access to public information said.
Daria Kalenyuk, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv, said on June 11 that she doesn’t know who the president is talking about. “I think this is a mistake,” Kalenyuk said. She said it appeared that Poroshenko was stealing a page from her predecessor, former President Viktor Yanukovych, whose administration would add up figures of minor officials caught for smaller-scale theft to make it appear that the corrupt ex-leader was, indeed, battling corruption.
Author and veteran Ukrainian political analyst Taras Kuzio also unsuccessfully asked twice for the list from the Presidential Administration.
Kuzio said that, in response to the second request, a press official said the list would be reviewed to see which names could be released publicly. If true, that would be even more alarming. Secret trials and convictions are Joseph Stalin-era practices that would have no place in a 21st century democracy that Ukraine aspires to be.
The Kyiv Post will keep the public updated on whether the Presidential Administration provides any information to support the assertion that 2,702 former officials were convicted of corruption in the last year.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected]
