Monitoring and control over the implementation of the conflict of interest legislation is one of the powers of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP). These activities are comprehensive and include identifying and documenting violations of the conflict of interest legislation, taking measures to eliminate them and identifying and eliminating conditions that facilitate the emergence of conflicts of interest.
Certain indicators of the NACP's activity in the field of conflicts of interest in 2024 compared to 2023 show that the number of recorded cases of violations of the conflict of interest legislation has decreased.
Thus, in 2024, NACP completed 213 measures to monitor and control the implementation of legislation on ethical behavior, prevention and settlement of conflicts of interest, of which 143 were based on the results of consideration of corruption reports. At the same time, in 2023, corruption reports received by NACP became the basis for 219 monitoring and control measures.
Based on the results of these activities, NACP drew up 27 reports on administrative offenses related to corruption against 25 people (in 2023, 42 reports were drawn up against 38 people), and issued 35 orders to eliminate violations of anti-corruption legislation (in 2023, 16 orders were issued in this area of work).
"Reducing the number of cases of violations of the conflict of interest legislation recorded by NACP is an indicator of increasing awareness of the requirements of anti-corruption legislation. For the National Agency, this trend is evidence of the need to work on identifying more complex and less obvious cases of conflict of interest, which often indicate possible corruption offenses,” said Oleksandr Shulga, Head of the Department for Monitoring and Control over the Implementation of Legislation on Conflict of Interest and Corruption Prevention.
The analysis of court practice based on the results of consideration of protocols on administrative offenses shows an increase in the number of persons subject to administrative penalties based on protocols of the NACP authorized persons: the percentage of protocols under which courts brought officials to justice increased from 26% in 2023 to 32% in 2024.
Therefore, one of the NACP priorities in 2025 will be to unify the practice of considering cases of administrative offenses and ensure the inevitability of punishment for committing such offenses.
Since the purpose of monitoring the implementation of the conflict of interest legislation is not limited to ensuring the inevitability of punishment for violations of anti-corruption legislation, the NACP pays considerable attention to eliminating the causes and conditions that contribute to the emergence of conflicts of interest and corruption-related offenses. NAPC actively engaged authorized units for the prevention and detection of corruption, which, in accordance with clause 4 of part 6 of Article 13-1 of the Law of Ukraine “On Prevention of Corruption”, are responsible for taking measures to identify conflicts of interest and facilitate their resolution. In cooperation with the Commissioners, 140 cases of possible conflicts of interest in the activities of public servants were investigated.
It is also worth noting the positive experience of the Agency's cooperation with the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine and the Deposit Guarantee Fund. During the monitoring of possible conflicts of interest among the heads of these agencies, the National Agency drew attention to the existence of conditions that systematically contributed to the emergence of such conflicts of interest. To eliminate them, it was necessary to amend the regulatory documents that regulated the use of financial incentives. Following consultations involving both parties, the identified risks were promptly addressed.
Since conflicts of interest are closely related to corruption, NACP does not ignore the facts of corruption offenses, as well as corruption risks, minimization of which makes corruption practices impossible. Thus, based on the results of the monitoring conducted in 2024, 20 materials on the detection of signs of corruption offenses were sent to the pre-trial investigation authorities, and the information received was taken into account in the preparation of the analytical study “TOP-10 Corruption Risks during the Implementation of the Pilot Project for the Restoration of Settlements Affected by the Armed Aggression of the Russian Federation.”
"Effective management of conflicts of interest is a preventive measure against corruption, so creating favorable conditions for compliance with the rules of conflict prevention and resolution is one of the most important tasks of the NACP monitoring. In 2025, we plan to cover, among other things, the defense, energy and healthcare sectors, as well as the activities of executive authorities in the regions and local governments,” said Mykola Korneliuk, Deputy Head of NACP.
