We continue to summarize the four-year work of the NACP 2.0 team. Although the introduction of such a financial control tool for public officials as lifestyle monitoring (LM) was envisaged by law back in 2016, the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) began to apply and improve it only in 2020.
"The lifestyle monitoring tool exists only in the United States and Ukraine. Its purpose is to determine whether the declarants' standard of living corresponds to the assets they and their family members have. The LM allows us to identify those officials who have declared rather modest assets but use luxury cars, buy estates, and receive valuable gifts. Even if an official tries to hide their assets or register them in the names of third parties, we will find them, draw up a relevant conclusion, and send them to the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) for further confiscation by the court," said Artem Sytnyk, Deputy Head of the NACP.
In 2020, the NACP initiated 47 pre-trial investigations of declaring entities, 20 of which were based on media reports. A full verification of declarations was launched in respect of four public officials, and in the case of another, a former pro-Russian Ukrainian politician and Member of Parliament of Ukraine, the materials collected by the NACP were transferred to the SAPO, which later gave grounds for the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) to recognize the asset as unjustified. This was the first such lawsuit in Ukraine.
In 2021, 84 lifestyle monitorings of officials were initiated, 23 of which were based on media publications, and 43 were based on self-reported data indicating a possible discrepancy between the declaring persons' standard of living and their legal income. As a result, 27 full audits were conducted, 12 of which resulted in the identification of inaccurate information worth UAH 140 million.
In 2022, 67 lifestyle monitoring programs were initiated under martial law, which resulted in the transfer of materials to nine declarants for full audits. The SAPO received 17 materials worth UAH 80 million regarding the detected signs of the acquisition of unjustified assets and one material with detected signs of illicit enrichment.
Since 2023, the monitoring of officials' lifestyles has been carried out using a risk-based approach that ensures that corrupt practices and public service are incompatible. During the year, 621 lifestyle monitoring of declaring entities was launched, and 552 monitoring was completed.
As a result, 47 cases with signs of unjustified assets and illicit enrichment were identified. In particular, 31 cases establishing signs of unjustified assets worth almost UAH 91 million were sent to the SAPO, and 13 cases with signs of illicit enrichment worth about UAH 500 million were sent to other anti-corruption agencies.
One of the most high-profile cases of 2023 was the NACP's monitoring of the lifestyle of Yevhen Borysov, head of the Odesa Regional Territorial Center for Staffing and Social Support, which revealed signs of a corruption criminal offense indicating his illicit enrichment of more than UAH 188 million.
In addition, in 2023, the National Agency analyzed legal practice and international standards in the field of financial control, key trends, effective strategies, and shortcomings in the practical application of the civil forfeiture institution.
Its results will be in demand to improve the processes of recovering unjustified assets and to create an environment where public service and corrupt practices are incompatible and democratic institutions effectively serve the public.
"Over the years, lifestyle monitoring has gone through a transformation from a procedure that is the basis for a full verification of the declaration to an independent, separate financial control tool aimed at identifying unjustified assets and illicit enrichment. Civil forfeiture is a lever to ensure that corrupt practices and public service are incompatible due to the impossibility of using illegally acquired assets," said Dmytro Sokolov, Head of the Department for Lifestyle Monitoring and Control over the Completeness of Declarations.
Earlier, we told you about the NACP's work to improve and simplify the declaration process in 2020–2023, the development of the whistleblowing institution, and the formation of the state anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.
