The National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), during full audits of declarations submitted by declarants from Odesa region, found false information worth more than UAH 243 million and signs of unreasonable assets worth UAH 15.9 million.
This was announced by Deputy Head of the NACP Sergiy Gupiak during a working visit to Odesa region.
He noted that the National Agency is conducting 68 full audits of declarations in the region, of which 44 have been completed so far. As a result of these checks, 21 declarations revealed inaccurate information, and 4 more showed signs of unreasonable assets. Among the violators of anti-corruption legislation are representatives of local governments, officials of the migration service and tax audit, and members of local councils.
During the visit, Deputy Head of NACP Sergiy Gupiak met with the leadership of Odesa City and Regional Councils, as well as the Regional Military Administration (RMA), law enforcement officers, school principals and representatives of higher education administrations, civil society activists and the media.
In addition to the financial control measures implemented by NACP and their results, Sergiy Gupiak discussed with local authorities how to minimize risks in the most corruption-prone sectors, such as border control, reconstruction, public procurement, crossing the state border and medical and social and military medical examinations.
"We already have developments and recommendations on tools to minimize corruption risks in most of these sectors. For example, to eliminate corrupt practices in the field of reconstruction, both the state and local authorities should focus on prioritizing reconstruction objects and coordinating these objects with the public, mechanisms for developing project documentation, selecting a contractor and setting the price of work. Speaking about one of the most resonant problems of today - conducting medical and social expertise, NACP conducted a study back in 2021 that identified the top 10 corruption risks in the activities of the Medical and Social Expert Commission. The introduction of electronic document management and integration of databases should become important anti-corruption preventive measures in this area,” said Sergiy Gupiak.
He added that the National Agency's specialists are currently working on analyzing risks in the customs sector, which, according to the results of the survey of the population and business "Corruption in Ukraine 2023: Understanding, Perception, Prevalence ”, was recognized as one of the most corrupt in the opinion of the population and business. Recommendations to address the identified risks will be developed in the near future. The Deputy Head of the NACP paid special attention to the construction of fortifications in the region, emphasizing that public procurement in the industry should be as transparent as possible.
As a reminder, within the framework of the regional travel project, created to strengthen the NACP's cooperation with communities, local authorities, secondary and higher education institutions, journalists, NGOs and to promote building integrity through community engagement, the Agency's representatives have already visited Lviv, Dnipro, Chernivtsi, Zhytomyr, Ivano-Frankivsk, Vinnytsia, Lutsk, Cherkasy, Khmelnytskyi and Kharkiv. Direct dialog with the regions is aimed at establishing constructive cooperation for the effective implementation of the state anti-corruption policy with a focus on local issues.
