Viktor Pavlushchyk, Head of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), took part in the panel EU Dimension: Effective Fight Against Corruption – Ensuring a Trustworthy Environment and Determining further Steps for Successful Reform Implementation within the framework of the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2024 (URC).
During the discussions, Viktor Pavlushchyk outlined the main priorities of the Agency's work, including drafting the next Anti-Corruption Strategy (the current Strategy covers the period of 2021-2025); harmonizing anti-corruption legislation in line with the requirements of the European Union and international standards; preventing corruption risks during the reconstruction of Ukraine, etc.
The panelists recognized the State Anti-Corruption Program for 2023-2025 (SACP) as one of the NACP's main achievements, noting the close cooperation of civil society organizations, independent experts and public sector representatives during its development. "Active cooperation of the NACP with the government, civil society, parliamentarians, international partners and independent experts is the way to address the challenges of overcoming corruption. The experience of developing the SACP is a vivid example of such cooperation,” emphasized the NACP Head.
The NACP Head also noted the challenges faced by the Agency. These include verification of almost two million declarations submitted over three years, using a new risk-based approach to selecting declarations for comprehensive examination. The Agency also needs to check about 22,000 reports on the financial activities of political parties, as the submission of reports and inspections, as well as declarations, have been suspended for a long time. The NACP faces a similar challenge with special checks of candidates for public service positions - the NACP's authorized officials must conduct thousands of special checks, which were resumed at the end of last year after a year and a half of suspension. The NACP is also focused on improving and automating the filing of declarations, in particular, working on its auto-completion, as well as on increasing the effectiveness of conflict of interest prevention and lifestyle monitoring.
"Our priorities are our challenges. Since the reintroduction of the mandatory declaration of public officials, the Agency's employees have an extremely large amount of work. All this requires resources, which are limited. Therefore, we see these limited resources as the main obstacle to achieving our goals. However, we will do our best to overcome these obstacles,” said Mr. Pavlushchyk.
The participants of the conference drew attention to Ukraine's progress in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) by Transparency International. Despite the war and other challenges, Ukraine's score over the past year has become one of the best among all countries.
The panel was also attended by Vira Mykhailenko, Head of the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC), Allan Pag Christensen, Head of the EU Anti-Corruption Initiative (EUACI), Nicolas Pinaud, Deputy Director of the OECD Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs, Martyna Bohuslavets, representative of the Rise Ukraine coalition, and moderated by Kateryna Ryzhenko from Transparency International Ukraine.
The URC2024 conference aims to mobilize international support for the recovery, reform and modernization of Ukraine. Traditionally, it brings together leading experts, government officials, representatives of international organizations and civil society to discuss strategies and coordinate efforts aimed at rebuilding Ukraine after the war.
The day before, as part of his working trip to Berlin, Victor Pavlushchyk attended the forum “All Reconstruction is Local”, where he spoke about anti-corruption efforts in the reconstruction of Ukraine. For more details, follow the link.
