In 5 months of 2024, the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) launched 449 comprehensive examinations of declarations under a new risk-based approach. Among those selected for comprehensive examination, the declarations submitted by representatives of:
- local self-government bodies - 78, including 2 heads of regional councils, 20 deputies of regional councils, and 56 deputies of local councils;
- state administrations - 22, including 2 deputy heads of regional state administrations, 2 heads of district state administrations;
- judicial authorities - 31, including 24 judges and 3 court presidents;
- customs and tax authorities - 15 tax officers, 10 customs officers, including 2 heads of customs;
- pre-trial investigation bodies - 23 prosecutors, including 1 head and 8 deputy heads of regional prosecutor's offices, 9 investigators, 3 investigators;
- state-owned enterprises - 22 heads of enterprises, 8 deputy heads, including defense enterprises;
- MPs - 18.
The largest number of declarations subject to full verification was filed by officials from Kyiv city (158 declarations), Odesa region (37), Kyiv region (33), Lviv region (26), Dnipropetrovs'k region (18), Cherkasy region (16), and Kharkiv region (15).
Completed comprehensive examination of declarations
As a result of 133 comprehensive examinations completed in 5 months, inaccurate information worth almost UAH 555 million, unjustified assets worth UAH 7.1 million and signs of illicit enrichment worth UAH 17.8 million were found.
In particular, in May, 85 comprehensive examinations were completed, which revealed signs of:
- Unjustified assets worth UAH 2.6 million of the village head of Verkhnokoretske village council in Zakarpattia region, whose family member acquired a house and a land plot in the absence of income from legal sources;
- false information totaling almost UAH 499 million (elements of Art. 366-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), including in declarations:
- member of Parliament (UAH 5.8 million), who failed to indicate information about his financial obligation arising from the purchase of corporate rights of the company and failed to indicate information about his expenses;
- Deputy Head of the Transcarpathian Customs Department (UAH 286 million), who failed to confirm the origin of his family member's monetary assets worth over UAH 272.6 million, his monetary assets worth over UAH 13.3 million, and failed to disclose his land plot and income;
- Head of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi District Council of Odesa Region (UAH 59.6 million), who failed to confirm the legitimacy of his monetary assets worth over UAH 59.5 million
- Director of the State Enterprise "Experimental Farm "Takhtaulovo" of the Institute of Plant Protection of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences" (UAH 27 million), who also failed to confirm the legality of the origin of his funds in the amount of more than UAH 25 million, did not reflect the apartment in which he actually lived, provided false information about the value of the apartment he owned and the amount of income received from the alienation of corporate rights;
- an employee of the Donetsk Regional Prosecutor's Office (UAH 23.4 million), who provided false information about his cryptocurrency and did not indicate the apartment where he actually lived;
- a judge of the Mukachevo City District Court of Zakarpattia Oblast (UAH 10 million), who failed to disclose information about her husband's corporate rights, of which she was aware, as the founders of the company were her relatives, her daughter was acting director of the company, and the contribution to the authorized capital was made at the expense of her husband's property, which was excluded from the relevant section of the declaration.
The NACP forwarded the relevant materials to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) and the Office of the Prosecutor General, the National Police of Ukraine (NPU) to consider initiating criminal proceedings under Article 366-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and drawing up administrative protocols under Part 4 of Article 172-6 of the Code of Administrative Offenses.
In addition, the NACP drew up a report on administrative violations under Part 4 of Article 172-6 of the Code of Administrative Offenses against an investigator of the Investigation Sector of the Police Department No. 5 of the Zaporizhzhia District Police Department of the Main Department of the National Police in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, who provided false information about her income in the amount of almost UAH 600 thousand. The materials were sent to court.
Based on the results of 133 comprehensive examinations completed in 5 months, most violations, including signs of illicit enrichment, false information and unjustified assets, were found in declarations submitted by representatives of:
- local self-government bodies - 15, including 1 head of a city council, 1 head of a district council, 4 deputies of regional councils;
- pre-trial investigation bodies and the police - 10;
- regional and district state administrations - 5;
- state-owned enterprises - 5, including 3 heads of enterprises.
Facts of declaring false information were confirmed in 13 out of 38 completed examinations of declarations of Kyiv city officials (32%); in all of 4 completed examinations of Poltava oblast officials (100%); in all of 3 completed examinations of Cherkasy oblast officials (100%); in all of 3 completed examinations of Vinnytsia oblast officials (100%); in 4 out of 6 completed examinations of Chernihiv oblast officials (67%).
"The new approach to selecting declarations for comprehensive examination is proving to be effective. The NACP has begun to focus on public officials whose declarations would hardly have been verified before, when declarations were selected solely on the basis of the level of their position. Corruption is not exclusively concentrated at the top level. There is a lot of corruption at the level of middle and lower management, in all regions and in all sectors. However, the number of inspections and their results coincide with the data of sociological surveys and give an idea of which areas and regions are most affected by corruption. The picture is quite revealing and gives an understanding of where the efforts of anti-corruption agencies should be focused. We look forward to the effective work of our colleagues from the NABU, SAPO, SBI and NPU in further investigating cases based on our materials, and to fair court decisions," said Deputy Head of the NACP Mykola Korneliuk, commenting on the results of comprehensive examinations of declarations for 5 months.
Currently, the NACP's authorized persons are conducting 343 comprehensive examinations. The full list of persons in respect of whom comprehensive examinations have been launched, as well as the results of the examinations, can be found here.
We emphasize that the start of a comprehensive examination does not mean that the declarant has committed a corruption or corruption-related offense.
In case of violations identified during the verification, the NACP takes measures to bring the person to statutory liability, and if there are grounds, sends materials to the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office to decide on the confiscation of unjustified assets.
What happens to the declaration after it is submitted? Read here.
