Rapping knuckles to the corruptionists

The official website of the Ministry of Justice published the report by the Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) on the third report on Ukraine for the criminalization of the corrupt actions and the transparency of political parties funding. It turned out that the Cabinet of Ministers gave the permission to make this document public “in order to provide the transparency of the Ukrainian president’s and government’s work” in compliance with the rules and practices of GRECO.

The authors of the report noted the positive steps taken by Ukraine such as criminal responsibility for the corrupt practices, illegal enrichment, influence trading, etc. GRECO also considers it necessary to continue this work. Ukraine has received quite a few remarks and recommendations and has been offered to inform about their fulfillment until April 30, 2013.

The Day before the Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych met the candidates for the heads of district state administrations and spoke about the achievements of Ukraine in the corruption fight (since the new anticorruption legislation was adopted). “Those who have made their businesses on the budget and have been looking for the positions where they could do it feel it (the legislation) more and more,” the president said and conceded that it will be difficult to fight the corruption since “the officials deprived of plum jobs and rapped on knuckles do not like it.” The president sees the origins of the Ukrainian corruption in the black money and thinks that “it hinders our people’s lives.” “How many people are involved in corrupt practices? The specialists say that not more than 5 percent. But at whose expense do these 5 percent live? At the expense of the other 95 percent who pay taxes.” The president’s statistics is largely confirmed by the experts (political experts, journalists, and public figures) interrogated by the Institute of the Ukrainian Policy. According to Director of the Institute Kostiantyn Bondarenko, 61.4 percent consider the corruption to be the main threat of the national security of Ukraine; 42.6 percent admit that Ukraine has made some progress fighting the corruption over the last year. However, 36.4 percent do not see any significant improvements.

Overall 81.5 percent of respondents are dissatisfied with the fact that very few cases are brought to the court. There the significant number of the accused have a possibility to pay off (the public opinion considers the court to be the leaders of corrupt practices). A total of 38 percent support the stricter measures to fight the corruption. However, two thirds of experts would not stake only on penal measures. They opine that not the displays but the origins of corruption should be fought. They recommend reducing the number of officials and checking and controlling units in the regulatory system, augmenting the salaries to the public servants, implementing the foreign (Georgian) experience in corruption fight, spreading propaganda, reforming the courts, the police, and the public prosecutor’s offices. All the experts agree that the successful reforms are impossible without fighting the corruption.

The foremost structure of the Ukrainian anticorruption front is SBU [Security Service of Ukraine. – Ed.] This is the idea Pavel Kuzmenko from the Head Department for Corruption and Organized Crime at SBU tired to suggest to the journalists during the round table “Combating corruption in Ukraine: efficiency, results, and achievements.” According to Kuzmenko, over the period of January-October of the current year the SBU departments or other law-enforcement agencies instituted 1,179 proceedings concerning prevarications, including 377 cases for “acceptance of bribe.” SBU instituted 462 proceedings for crime facts and signs committed by the workers of the law-enforcement agencies or controlling units comprising 238 police officers, 18 workers of public prosecutor’s offices, 71 tax officers, 44 penal system officers, and 43 customs officers. Overall 204 crimes concerning the bribery were resolved.

When commenting on his colleagues’ “practices” Kuzmenko asserted that the corruption has recently become more organized. “Consequently, we try to liquidate specific corrupt groups parasitizing on the state authorities,” he told and complained that the ministries and departments do not want to “wash their dirty linen in public.”

Director of the Institute for Global Economic and Energetic Strategy Yurii Nerubai also remarked the role SBU plays in the corruption fight and even thinks that this service has made it systematic. At the same time he says that the “corrupt machine” continues working in Ukraine and, on the one hand creates “convenient laws” and, on the other hand, “tries to consider the interests of various services fighting the corruption and even set them loggerheads.”