The Head of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), Viktor Pavlushchyk, is in Berlin on a working visit to participate in events organized by the German government and other development partners. One of them was the forum “All Reconstruction is Local”, organized jointly by the German and Ukrainian governments. The Head of the National Agency took part in the panel “Anti-corruption efforts in local recovery” together with representatives of local government, Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych and the public sector, Martyna Boguslavets, founder of the Anti-Corruption Center “Mezha”.
The panel was part of a conference that was to cover such issues as the benefits and limitations of twin city and sister city status and other models of regional cooperation; cooperation between national and local recovery projects; human capital needs and project management at the local level; access to financing and insurance at the local level; and how to comply with EU norms, sustainable development, and the highest standards of transparency at the local level.
"NACP work is largely focused on anti-corruption efforts in the restoration and long-term reconstruction of Ukraine. Ukraine's recovery depends on the implementation of effective and transparent tools to control these processes. NACP has already developed anti-corruption measures in the areas of urban planning, land management and administrative services, which lay a solid foundation for a sustainable and responsible state,” said Mr. Pavlushchyk during his speech.
He emphasized that the State Anti-Corruption Program for 2023-2025 should become the roadmap for Ukraine's socio-economic recovery at the local level. It provides for the introduction of such effective tools to prevent corruption as:
- creation of the Unified Electronic Urban Planning Cadastre, which will serve as a platform for the provision of administrative services in the field of urban planning and a public source of urban planning information;
- transition from normative monetary valuation of land plots to mass valuation based on market value, which will allow determining the amount of land tax and rent based on the real value of the land plot, taking into account its location;
- further digitalization of administrative processes, which involves the implementation and modernization of 63 IT products for the digital transformation of public authorities and local governments.
An important component of the implementation of anti-corruption measures in the process of rebuilding Ukraine is compliance with and implementation of European standards provided for in the Implementation Plan for the European Commission's recommendations presented in the Report on Ukraine's Progress in Implementing the EU Enlargement Action Plan until 2023. Transparency standards at the local level require monitoring mechanisms: regular audits, public reporting, and public involvement in control processes. Local authorities should be provided with the tools and resources necessary to comply with these standards.
