Oleksiy Khmara believes the National Anti-Corruption Strategy and state anti-corruption program are at risk of failure
Senior Ukrainian officials are stalling anti-corruption reforms, says the director of Transparency International Ukraine Oleksiy Khmara. Anti-corruption monitoring is conducted by Transparency International Ukraine (TORO Creative Union) in collaboration with the Anti-Corruption Council of Ukraine, Ukrainian Institute for Public Policy, the Philosophy of Heart NGO, Centre for political and legal reforms, the Open Society Foundation, and the Our Right Legal Information Center with assistance from the MATRA Program of the Netherlands Embassy in Ukraine and the International Renaissance Foundation’s Civil Society and Good Governance Program.
According to Oleksiy Khmara, the State Program on Preventing and Combating Corruption for 2011-2015 “is powerless and doesn’t provide any significant resources directly for the fight against bribery and corruption” and the “government isn’t doing anything about it”.
The expert noted that the government approved anti-corruption program has a budget of more than UAH 800 million, but implementation is weak. The average level of success of this state program is 2.7 out of a possible 5 points. Given the situation, Oleksiy Khmara believes the National Anti-Corruption Strategy and state anti-corruption program are at risk of failure.
The expert said that civil society organizations are advocating updates to the state anti-corruption program and changes to approaches in the implementation of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy.
A protest was recently held outside the Presidential Administration and Cabinet of Ministers against the failure of anti-corruption reforms in Ukraine. Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, Justice Minister Oleksandr Lavrynovych, who is the coordinator of the state anti-corruption program, and Andriy Klyuev, executive secretary of the National Anti-Corruption Committee under the leadership of the President of Ukraine, were named personally responsible for the state of affairs with the fight against corruption.
Contacts:
Anti-Corruption Council of Ukraine
Bohdan Yakymyuk
(+380 44) 361 78 28
pr@ti-ukraine.org
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The goal of the Civil Society and Good Governance Program is to promote development of a system to protect the rights of public and municipal service consumers and to support NGO policy capacity building.
