Today, January 15, the four-year term of office of Oleksandr Novikov, Head of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention o(NACP), expires. The next head will soon be elected, and until then, the Deputy Head will act as his replacement.
As a reminder, the issue of determining the person who is entrusted with the duties of the NACP Head is regulated by Part 2 of Article 7 of the Law of Ukraine "On Prevention of Corruption". In particular, in the absence of the NACP Head, his duties are performed by deputies in accordance with the order adopted by him. By the order of January 15, 2024, the Deputy Head of the NACP Iaroslav Liubchenko was appointed to perform the duties of the Head of the NACP starting from January 16, 2024.
Today, Oleksandr Novikov held a meeting with journalists to talk about the results and key achievements of the NACP team in 2020-2023.
According to him, the development and adoption of the Anti-Corruption Strategy and the State Anti-Corruption Program until 2025 (SACP) can be considered as undoubted successes. High-quality implementation of these documents will bring Ukraine closer to the standards of the European Union, NATO, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and will radically improve the culture of behavior of both public officials and Ukrainian society as a whole.
"I am proud of the digital products created by the NACP team. Among them are the Integrity Portal (a portal for anti-corruption commissioners), the Unified Whistleblower Reporting Portal, the Information System for Monitoring the Implementation of State Anti-Corruption Policy, the Training Platform with online courses for young people, public officials, educators, etc., the War and Sanctions Portal, the Knowledge Base (explanation portal), and the PolitData system, which is the only one in the world that contains the most complete information on the financing of all political parties. In the future, this system will be used to submit party reports during elections. A significant success of our team is the improvement of the Register of Declarations, the most transparent and complete register of declarations in the world. All these digital tools are unique," said Oleksandr Novikov.
Another important project is the Unified Whistleblower Reporting Portal, which the NACP launched on September 6, 2023. So far, more than a thousand corruption reports have been filed through this electronic resource. Ahead is a long process of developing a culture of whistleblowing and fostering responsibility among citizens, which is the inadmissibility of tolerating corruption.
The NACP's successfully implemented areas of work for 2020-2023 also include financial control and lifestyle monitoring, which aim to establish whether the declarants' standard of living is in line with the assets they and their family members have in their declarations. The Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) was sent 31 materials to confiscate unjustified assets that the NACP found in the possession of officials of various levels.
After the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the NACP team continued to perform its functions in the context of wartime realities, joining the fight against the aggressor on the sanctions front. The NACP developed and ensured the adoption by the Parliament of a draft law on the confiscation of property of sanctioned persons, which resulted in the confiscation of tens of billions of hryvnias, and made Russia the largest sanctioned country in the world ever.
Since the end of 2022, the NACP has consistently advocated for the restoration of e-declaration. During the consideration of the relevant draft laws in the Parliament, the NACP actively influenced the introduction of norms that eliminated corruption risks. The public declaration campaign started on time, and on December 10, 2023, the NACP opened public access to the Register of Declarations around the clock, taking into account all security factors.
However, the NACP's top priority for 2020-2023 is to build values based on the integrity of officials: to do the right thing even when no one is watching.
Answering the question about recommendations for the future head of the National Agency for the next four years, Oleksandr Novikov noted that it is important to preserve the achievements of the National Agency's team over the past four years.
"It is extremely important to preserve the NACP's strategic goals and people-oriented management system. We need to foster a culture based on our values - integrity, cooperation, responsibility, development, and ambition. Continue to build a good government and a just society. It is necessary to further strengthen the independence of the NACP as a single body for anti-corruption policy making. This is especially true when interacting with the President, the Government, the Parliament, and our international partners. Effective implementation of the Presidential Administration Procedure Act is also among the top priorities of the next head. Equally important is communication with the public, media, and civil society organizations aimed at strengthening social support for those mechanisms that contribute to the formation of a fair and just environment in Ukraine. I hope that the next Head of the NACP will be able to keep the high bar set by our team," summarized Oleksandr Novikov.
The analytical report on the results of the NACP's work in 2020-2023 is available here.
As a reminder, the Head of the NACP is appointed by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine based on the results of an open competitive selection for a term of four years and cannot hold this position twice in a row. Oleksandr Novikov was appointed as the Head of the NACP on January 15, 2020.
