The EU Anti-Corruption Initiative (EUACI) has been a strong supporter of ensuring the effectiveness of the corruption prevention institutional mechanisms since the start of the program in Ukraine. In 2018 the International Anti-corruption Advisory Boardrecommended the Parliament of Ukraine to review relevant provisions of the Law to ensure competent, impartial, and effective collection and verification of public officials’ e-declarations. So when in October 2019 Ukrainian Parliament amended the Law on Corruption Prevention to relaunch the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), the EUACI welcomed these amendments as an opportunity to re-engage with the Agency.
Since then the EUACI has been actively facilitating the rebooting process of the Agency. Throughout the year the NACP has been using this opportunity to design and implement a number of reforms within the area of its responsibilities in order to ensure the effectiveness of the corruption prevention institutional mechanisms and deliver practical and substantial result.
Three major achievements of the new NACP team in the last year:
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Development of a new Anti-Corruption Strategy for four years, the implementation of which will allow Ukraine to save up to 200 billion hryvnias per year (about $7 billion). The Anti-Corruption Strategy draft law was already approved by the Parliament in the first reading.
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Constant monitoring and analysis of bills that affect the state anti-corruption policy or the state of corruption in Ukraine. The NACP prepared 39 conclusions on the bills registered in the Verkhovna Rada.
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The full verification of more than 1,000 declarations of high-ranking officials has begun, 446 of which have been completed before the Constitutional Court issued a decision claiming that this function of the NACP is unconstitutional. Signs of a criminal offense were detected in 97 declarations. Violations totalling half a billion hryvnias (about $17.7) have been established.
Throughout, the EU Anti-Corruption Initiative has provided expert and technical support to the NACP, namely:
- ✅ Analysis and recommendations for the draft laws, including the Anti-Corruption Strategy
- ✅ Development of a strategy and action plan for the NACP
- ✅ Conducting a joint survey on the perception of corruption in Ukraine covering 2,516 citizens, 1,093 enterprises and 98 experts
- ✅ Organization of a study tour to the National Integrity Agency of Romania
- ✅ Improving the qualification of the NACP experts through a number of professional trainings
- ✅ Development of a draft assessment methodology and criteria for the NACP audit, which was later approved by the Cabinet of Ministers
- ✅ Evaluation of IT projects and development of IT infrastructure full-scale audit methodology for the NACP
The EU and Denmark plan to provide significant technical assistance to the NACP in the coming years, which should help to build the efficiency and capacity of the NACP on strategic and tactical levels.
