Corruption prevention mechanisms

The National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) is a central authority of executive power with a special responsibility for the development and implementation of the national anti-corruption policy.¹ The main functions of the NACP are corruption prevention and overseeing the formation and implementation of the state anti-corruption policy. NACP’s mandate is defined by Article 11 of the Corruption Prevention Law of Ukraine,² adopted on 14 October 2014.

Since making this commitment at the IACC in 2018, NACP continues to develop corruption prevention mechanisms and implement the relevant initiatives and make use of innovative technologies within its mandate, such as the Declare 2020³ website and a guideline-driven declaration chat-bot for those who submit asset declarations. The Declare 2020 portal contains official clarifications, search modules, infographics and educational videos, a hotline, official NACP media channels, and so on. The website shares relevant information about the provisions for declaring persons authorised to perform the functions of the state or local self-government. There are automatic verifications of these declarations with red flags to select declarations for verification. There is also POLITDATA,⁴ an e-register of political parties’ reports that provides better public access to this information, and a transparent online voting competition to select members of the Public Council. The National Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2020-2024⁵ was submitted to parliament and awaits voting in the plenary session. Unfortunately, this commitment was only partially implemented as the functioning of the automatic verification of asset declarations is poor because of incompleteness of Ukrainian state registers, which are needed for comparisons to the declaration information. Also, the new NACP’s approach for the use of the red flags to select declarations for verification was criticised by civil society.⁶ The downside is that the national agency has not made the process of developing new rules of logical and arithmetical control inclusive and open to the public. The NACP ignored the public’s request to join their renewal. Ensuring public participation in such processes will help the development of the new initiatives.

Challenges to effective commitment implementation
Insufficient and delayed budget funding for the NACP, which could interfere with NACP’s further implementation of the initiatives and technologies within its mandate.⁷

The process for employing people is not adequate due to the COVID-19 pandemic. NACP needs a system of transparent and openly competitive recruitment system with relevant integrity and professionalism checks.

The NACP does not always make the process of developing new innovative tools inclusive and open to the public. For instance, the NACP did not ensure inclusiveness, openness and transparency when finalising the rules for the automated verification of asset declarations.⁸ There was no announcement or invitation to participate in the process. Similarly, the draft results were not made public, there was no request for proposals, suggestions or comments.

Ukrainian state registers have low quality data and are incomplete. They are not compatible with other registers and databases and the speed of information exchange between registers complicates the effective implementation of this commitment.

Opportunities to accelerate commitment implementation
Amendments should be made to improve the efficiency and integrity of the legislation on the state financing of political parties. NACP can gather information from previous years’ reports on political party financing and suggest revisions to the relevant law. The automatic verification of such electronic reports, already developed by NACP, could accelerate the implementation of this commitment.

Recommendations
Provide sufficient and timely budget funding to the NACP, which should be adequate to maintain the agency and develop the relevant registers.

Ensure an inclusive, open and transparent process for developing new initiatives.

Increase the quality and completeness of the Ukrainian state registers.

Develop effective international mechanisms for information exchange as recommended in the UNCAC. International partners, governments and other anti-corruption agencies could consider giving the NACP free and open access to their state registries to verify asset declarations.

Introduce a case management system for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the NACP and its employees.