Over 800,000 Ukraine’s public officials, including politicians, civil servants and judges have filed their declarations for 2017, as the deadline for submission of the annual electronic asset declarations ended on March 31.
Anti-corruption activists, who have been obliged to declare their assets by the law President Petro Poroshenko signed in March 2017, also submitted online documents.
Ukraine implemented asset declarations in 2016. This is the third time Ukrainian public officials file annual online declarations. They must declare real estate, vehicles, securities, entities, revenues, monetary assets and other property.
Ukraine’s top officials have submitted their declarations on time.
Poroshenko has declared total income of over Hr 16.3 million ($615,100) including Hr 336,000 ($12,680) worth annual salary and over Hr 15.7 million ($592,000) in deposit interest from the International Investment Bank.
He also indicated his tourism expenses of over Hr 2.7 million ($102,000). However, Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe’s Schemes investigative program reported in January that Poroshenko and his family spent a vacation on a private island in the Maldives and that it cost them at least $500,000, which is over Hr 13.2 million.
At the president’s press conference on February 28, Poroshenko said he would show the expenses in the declaration.
“I paid for this – both the plane and the hotel – from my bank account in the Ukrainian bank. And in the submitted declaration – this should happen within the next three and a half weeks – you will be able to check this. I emphasize that not a single penny from the Ukrainian budget was spent for that. All the funds were declared and all taxes were paid,” Poroshenko said.
The Kyiv Post couldn’t reach the president’s press service for a comment.
Ukraine’s Prime-minister Volodymyr Groysman has received over Hr 17.1 million ($645,000) in 2017, including over Hr 8.7 million ($328,000) for selling a land plot, over Hr 5.1 million ($192,000) for real estate lease, over Hr 2.7 million ($102,000) of deposit interest and Hr 435,000 ($16,000) in salary.
According to prime-minister’s declaration, his wife Olena Groysman purchased a 2017 Mercedes-Benz GLE 350D worth over Hr 2.1 million ($79,000) in July.
Ukrainian Parliament Speaker Andriy Parubiy has declared a total income of over Hr 732,000 ($27,600), including over Hr 288,000 ($10,900) annual salary and three non-monetary gifts.
Parubiy also revealed a 92-square-meters apartment in Lviv worth over Hr 739,000 ($28,000).
In his Facebook post, Parubiy explained that it is not a newly purchased apartment but the one he has lived in “for many years.” He says that it used to belong to his brother and father and has recently been re-registered as his property.
Ukraine’s top candidate to win presidential elections in 2019 and the leader of the Batkivshchyna political party Yulia Tymoshenko has declared a total income of Hr 560,000 ($21,100) including Hr 225,000 ($8,500) annual salary in 2017.
Apart from that, Tymoshenko owns Hr 904,000 ($34,100) of monetary assets. Her husband owns Hr 382,000 ($14,400), 194,000 euros and $385,000.
On March 15, the U.S. website The Hill reported that Tymoshenko allegedly hired former Donald Trump campaign lobbyists from the Avenue Strategies company. Their services would cost Tymoshenko $65,000 per month and a total of $390,000 for the whole contract term, half a year.
The leader of Batkivshchyna in the comment to the Schemes investigative program said that she didn’t know the company and had no idea who hired it for her. She didn’t declare this money in her declaration’s expenses.
Anti-graft activists
In a year after the law about e-declarations came into force, Poroshenko introduced the changes to it that obliged anti-corruption activists to submit declarations identical to those that public officials file.
After Verkhovna Rada passed the changes, Poroshenko signed them in March 2017.
The law was disapproved by Ukraine’s Western partners.
In a year, the parliament failed to pass legislation that would postpone the deadline of filing asset declarations for activists.
European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Johannes Hahn in his statement published on March 28, said that such obligations contradict with the recommendations given by Ukraine’s international partners, including the EU.
“Civil society has been doing an important and courageous work and must be able to play its proper role without undue obstacles and interference,” the statement reads.
On March 29, the G7 group of countries urged Ukrainian authorities to cancel electronic declarations for anti-corruption activists and amnesty those of them who fail to file declarations by the April 1 deadline.
In order to prevent prosecution, Ukrainian activists including the chief executive officer at Transparency International Ukraine Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, Vitaliy Shabunin and Daria Kaleniuk from the Anti-Corruption Action Center filed online declarations.
“We have fulfilled the law, no matter how absurd it was,” Shabunin says in the video published on March 30.
Among other assets, the members of the center have declared symbols they used for anti-corruption actions and protests, such as the t-shirt with “Fuck corruption” inscription and a straitjacket for the prosecutor general.
