Financial control over the assets of public officials is one of the most effective areas of work of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP). We continue to summarize the four-year work of the NACP 2.0 team.
"Special inspections are carried out to ensure that corrupt practices and public service are incompatible. The results of special inspections are crucial when appointing a candidate to a high position. A special inspection will definitely reveal if he or she owns assets that are not supported by legitimate income or has submitted false documents. This tool largely guarantees the transparency and accountability of the authorities. Combined with the control over the timeliness of filing declarations, it is almost impossible for a corrupt official to get into public service," said Artem Sytnyk, Deputy Head of the NACP.
Since 2020, the role of special inspections in the selection of honest personnel for responsible positions in the state has increased significantly. The results of their conduct by the National Agency are no longer a formality.
In 2021, the NACP changed the methodology for conducting special inspections of declarations. In particular, it establishes the correspondence of the acquired assets to the income received from legal sources not only by the candidate for office but also by his or her family members.
In the summer of 2022, the government adopted a resolution approving a new version of the Procedure for Conducting Special Inspections prepared by the National Agency, which sets out a specific list of reasons why a dishonest candidate may reasonably be denied an appointment.
As a result, the special vetting process has begun to weed out people who cannot hold positions of responsibility or of highly special responsibility. For example, this includes people who are liable for military service but are not yet registered with the military commissariat.
In 2022-2023, the NACP conducted more than 33 thousand special inspections, 5 thousand of which were conducted using new approaches. In 221 declarations of candidates for office, signs of false and inaccurate information worth more than UAH 730 million were found.
In terms of control over the timeliness of filing declarations, a systematic and consistent approach to the organization of preventive measures has resulted in a threefold reduction in the number of cases of failure to file and late filing of declarations, from more than 23 thousand in 2019 to 8.5 thousand in 2021.
The procedure for informing about the opening of a foreign currency account has been improved.
"Over the past 4 years, the NACP has focused on taking measures to significantly increase the role of special inspections in the selection of honest personnel for responsible positions in the state and eliminate the formal approach to their conduct, as well as significantly reduce the facts of failure to submit and late submission of declarations," said Oleksandr Ampleev, Head of the Department for Special Inspections and Control over the Timeliness of Declarations.
The analytical report on the NACP's work for four years (2020-2023) is available here.
