The state anti-corruption program has little to do with fighting corruption, experts say
The State Program on Prevention and Combating Corruption for 2011-2015 doesn’t include funds to battle bribery and corruption. This according to the participants of the Dec. 10 press conference in Kyiv “A Matter of Millions: monitoring results of the state anti-corruption program”. Independent monitoring of the State Program was conducted by Transparency International Ukraine (TORO Creative Union) in collaboration with the Anti-Corruption Council of Ukraine, Ukrainian Institute for Public Policy, Open Society Foundation, Center for Political and Legal Reforms, Philosophy of Heart NGO, and Our Right Legal Information Center with the support of the MATRA Program of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Ukraine and the International Renaissance Foundation’s Civil Society and Good Governance Program.
According to the experts, the state anti-corruption program has little to do with fighting corruption; more than 95% of the program budget (UAH 803.58 million) is to be spent by the Ministry of Health to introduce electronic medical forms and digital signatures, while another UAH 6.6 million will go towards a new electronic document management system for the Ministry of Social Policy. The program does not provide separate financing for such important anti-corruption measures as the creation of multifunctional administrative services centers, introduction of a “one-stop-shop” system at the national and local levels, introduction of e-procurement, introduction of anti-corruption programs in schools, etc.
“The average success rate of the program is 2.7 points on a 5-point scale. The proposed measures aren’t always appropriate and there is inconsistency in indicators used to measure the progress of the program activities. Government agencies have sufficient capacity to implement the program, but lack the financial resources to do quality work,” said Oleksiy Khmara, the director of Transparency International Ukraine.
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.
