Fighting corruption or just showing off?

On September 4, the President of Lithuania, an ally of Ukraine, Gitanas Nausėda, said that corruption was hindering arms supplies. The next day, deputies of the Verkhovna Rada met and voted to reintroduce mandatory asset declarations. This was one of the requirements of the International Monetary Fund for the next loan to Ukraine. But when it was time to vote on opening the electronic register of declarations to the public, the MPs disappeared, and the required number of votes was not reached. Nevertheless, President Zelenskyy vetoed the law and said that the declarations should be open immediately.

So, is Ukraine taking real steps to fight corruption, or is it just fulfilling the demands of its international partners? Svidomi finds out.

The e-declarations register was launched in Ukraine in 2016 when the country was actively implementing anti-corruption reform after the Revolution of Dignity and the change of power in 2014.

The main objective of e-declarations is to ensure transparency and accountability of the public service. The declarations allow us to see whether the official income of a public official matches their actual lifestyle. The declarations are checked by the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), a body of the new anti-corruption system that was also created after the 2014 Revolution.

All top officials, members of parliament, judges, local authorities, law enforcement, and military officials are required to file declarations. They include movable and immovable property, securities, corporate rights, and monetary assets.

To prevent corruption schemes, when property is registered in the name of relatives, their assets are also declared. Failure to declare property or understatement of its actual value is a punishable offence.

At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, mandatory declarations were suspended, and access to the registers was closed due to the threat from the Russians. Civil servants are currently submitting declarations for 2021 and 2022 on a voluntary basis.

One of the conditions for the International Monetary Fund to disburse part of the $15.6 billion loan is the restoration of mandatory declaration, so MPs and the government have begun to develop various draft laws.

The introduction of e-declaration was an important step in the fight against corruption. For instance, based on the results of a full verification of declarations in 2021, the NACP found inaccurate information in officials' declarations amounting to over ₴1.2 billion (about $31.5 million).

Violations were found after a full review of 1,026 declarations. However, there are about 700,000 declarants in Ukraine, and the NACP is physically unable to check all of them.

Journalists and civil society activists came to the rescue. In 2021, based on reports from citizens, journalists, and law enforcement officers about possible false declarations, the NACP verified 183 declarations. In 74% of them, the information was confirmed — a total of ₴418 million (almost $11 million) worth of false information was found.

On September 5, the Ukrainian parliament voted to reintroduce mandatory asset declarations, but the amendment to immediately open e-declarations did not receive the required number of votes.

The adoption of the draft law in its current form caused a wave of outrage among Ukrainian civic activists, anti-corruption NGOs, and society itself.

"You don't need to see how much we stole during the war❌

You don't need to know what cars and mansions we bought during the war❌

You do not need to pry into the affairs of statesmen❌

This is the message that Ukrainians received from people's deputies who closed the register of declarations for another year. There is zero point in such a resumption of declarations," the Anti-Corruption Action Centre wrote.

As protests and mass actions are prohibited in Ukraine during martial law, electronic petitions signed by verified Ukrainian citizens are a form of democracy and expression of opinion. Anyone can register a petition, but it must receive at least 25,000 votes within 92 days for the President to review it and respond.

The petition demanding a veto of the draft law and its return to parliament with a demand to open the register of asset declarations of officials broke records in terms of speed and number of votes. The required 25,000 signatures were collected in three hours, and 83,000 Ukrainians supported the petition in the day and a half that the signature campaign was open.

Members of the European Parliament also called on Volodymyr Zelenskyy to veto the bill. Zelenskyy said he would make a decision after consulting with Deputy Prime Minister for Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna, and he vetoed the law as soon as it appeared on the parliament's website.

“I think everyone understands the reason for this veto: declarations should be open. Immediately. Not in a year. The registry should be opened now. Actually, the law should be voted on with this key amendment,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on September 12. Parliament voted for the amendment on September 20.

Since the President did not mention that he wanted to consult with anti-corruption agencies, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Anti-Corruption Policy, or civil society activists, the question remains: is this a real fight against corruption or just a fulfilment of the partners' demands?

Instead, at the same meeting of the Verkhovna Rada on September 5, deputies supported amendments to another draft law that contradicted anti-corruption practices.

While the declaration is voluntary, 50 deputies submitted declarations for 2021 and 33 for 2022. However, 250 members of parliament voted to avoid liability if an official fails to declare property worth up to ₴1.3 million (about $35,000). Once the fine is paid, the offender will not be considered to have been prosecuted.

The people's deputies also supported a regulation that conceals from the public the data from the Unified Register of persons who have committed corruption and corruption-related offences, or the so-called "Register of Corrupt Officials."

"In particular, [the amendments] provide for the removal of information about more than 10,000 people convicted of corruption-related offenses. This will allow such persons to participate in procurement, which threatens the integrity of Ukraine’s recovery and the needs of the Armed Forces, as well as to get into government and judicial positions.," the National Agency on Corruption Prevention writes and calls on the President to veto this law, which has not gained such a public response as the closed registers of declarations.

These are not the only efforts to fight corruption that Ukraine is currently implementing. On September 5, the most significant personnel change in the Ukrainian government since the start of the full-scale invasion took place — a country at war changed its Minister of Defence. Oleksii Reznikov, who has been in office for more than 550 days of the full-scale war, has been associated with corruption scandals and disputes with journalists for the past six months. We wrote more about them in one of our previous articles.

In an interview with CNN on September 11, Volodymyr Zelenskyy explained his decision to dismiss Reznikov as a result of his unwillingness to compromise on corruption in the government.

Amid the discrediting of Ukraine over alleged corruption in the defence ministry, that was some seemingly positive news. On September 2, one of Ukraine's most influential oligarchs, Ihor Kolomoiskyi, was served with a suspicion notice for fraud and money laundering.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), together with the Bureau of Economic Security, found that between 2013 and 2020, Kolomoiskyi legalised ₴570 million (about $15 million) by transferring it abroad. For this purpose, he used the infrastructure of the banks under his control. The court sentenced the oligarch to two months' detention with an alternative of bail in the amount of over ₴509 million.

While in custody, Kolomoiskyi received another suspicion notice from the anti-corruption authorities, who had been investigating him for several years. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office suspect him of misappropriating PrivatBank funds worth over ₴9.2 billion (over $240 million).

Why did the SBU want to get ahead of the anti-corruption agencies and be the first to serve Kolomoisky with a suspicion notice of money laundering for a much smaller amount?

Let's see another example.

On August 27, Zelenskyy announced in an interview with Nataliia Moseichuk that he would propose to the parliament to equate corruption with high treason during martial law. High treason in Ukraine is punishable by up to 15 years in prison with confiscation of property. State security cases are investigated by the SBU, which could receive the cases currently being investigated by the NABU.

Vitalii Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre (AntAC), wrote that by equating corruption with high treason, the Presidential Office wants to protect its corrupt employees and get tools to destroy opponents.

Shabunin reminded that the deputy head of the Presidential Office, Oleh Tatarov, was also involved in a corruption case. He was suspected of involvement in the misappropriation of funds from the National Guard of Ukraine. In 2020, the case was transferred from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine to the SBU, where it was essentially abandoned. The charges against Tatarov were dropped in April 2022.

After criticism of the initiative by anti-corruption bodies and international partners, it was decided to postpone the idea, RBC-Ukraine reports. Zelenskyy has not yet submitted the promised bill to parliament.

At the moment, it seems that the authorities are trying to implement allegedly anti-corruption practices, where there are hidden meanings or additional risks behind loud headlines. When they encounter criticism and public outcry, decisions are revised or postponed, but this is not always the case.  

In the second year of full-scale war, both Ukrainian society and international partners are unwilling to tolerate corruption. According to a survey conducted by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, 78% of respondents believe that the President of Ukraine is directly responsible for corruption in the government and military administrations.