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| PHÎÒÎ: PHL |
The signing of a package of the first decrees on fighting corruption demonstrated how important this issue is for the image of President Viktor Yanukovych. One of the decrees was drafted by the National Anti-corruption Committee, which was personally headed by Yanukovych.
Oleksandr Lavrynovych was appointed the executive secretary of the committee. He will have to carry the entire legislative burden of the declared clampdown on corruption. More specifically, he will have to explain why the anti-corruption laws adopted by the VR but for a second time been postponed until a later date would not do the job.
While Lavrynovych is drafting a legal anti-corruption base, competent bodies and their heads representing different groups in the Party of Regions – the PGO headed by Oleksandr Medvedko (who is oriented directly towards Yanukovych), the Ministry of Interior headed by Anatoliy Mohylev (oriented towards Yanukovych and Crimean Premier Vasyl Dzharta) and the SBU headed by Valeriy Khoroshkovskiy (who represents the Levochkin-Firtash group) have taken the reins in the war against corruption.
In addition, from the government side the MIA is controlled by Vice Premier Volodymyr Syvkovych (oriented towards First Vice Premier Andriy Klyuyev). From the side of the Presidential Administration, former prosecutor general and assistant chief-of-staff Hennadiy Vasyliev, who has direct access to Yanukovych, will control the country’s main law enforcement body.
The Control and Auditing Administration and its head Petro Andreyev, one of Mykola Azarov’s men, will play an important role in nailing corrupt government officials in the previous regime.
To be sure, in his pre-election program Yanukovych only touched the tip of the iceberg on the issue of the fight against corruption expressing his conviction that after the elections the Ukrainian government will be cleansed of all corrupt officials and promising to continue the housecleaning campaign, which resulted in the dismissal of officials representing the “orange”. Today’s anti-corruption crusaders will continue to actively expose crimes of the former government and optimistically declare that as early as this autumn they will prove abuse of power by the former government of Yulia Tymoshenko to the tune UAH 100 bn.
As for other directions of the crusade, Yanukovych and his henchmen are clearly declaring that they are in no hurry. As mentioned earlier, the coalition postponed the date of effect of the package of anti-corruption laws adopted in the summer of 2009 until January 1, 2011.
The laws envisage introducing criminal liability of persons fulfilling public functions of the civil service as delegated by the state (i.e. auditors, experts and heads of arbitration courts) and upper management of international organizations that were proven to be involved in acts of corruption.
The new law also set limitations on civil servants receiving gratuities for performing their professional duties, prohibit nepotism, is conducting special inspections of candidates for positions in the civil service, etc.
Many representatives of practically all political forces complained about these bills, but former minister of justice Mykola Onyshchuk said this is because the laws apply to those that have their own or public authority and for this reason many do not want to subordinate to the new rules of control.
Lavrynovych is of a totally different opinion. He believes the current edition of anti-corruption laws are aimed first and foremost against Ukrainian citizens will foster the flourishing of corruption in the law enforcement bodies.
The current minister of justice says “catching corrupt officials red-handed is not the main objective… a decision must be made regarding the breeding ground for corrupt activity”.
In short, the parliament passed in the first reading a new convincing anti-corruption bill simultaneously with the postponement of anti-corruption laws. This could be grounds for completely forgetting about previous initiatives and long hours of work on perfecting new ones.
One more undertaking that has a rather bleak future will likely be the creation of a structure intended to bring to fruition the decision of the National Anti-corruption Committee that has not be manifested in any way over first 100 days under the new presidency.
Yanukovych says “in the foreseeable future we will create an executive structure to fight corruption. I don’t know what it will be named – a committee or a bureau, – but he essence is that it will be engaged in fighting corruption”. Voluminous, full-fledged and the main thing, promising.
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