On June 19, the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko by his Decree delegated the last (third) auditor of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), Pavlo Zhebrivskyi. Prior to this, the Verkhovna Rada and the Cabinet of Ministers delegated their representatives to the commission – Volodymyr Vasylenko and Mykhailo Buromenskyi.

In accordance with the Law “On the National Anti-Corruption Bureau”, an annual audit of NABU’s activities, conducted by a commission of three persons, has to be carried out. The commission consists of persons with significant experience of work in pre-trial investigation bodies, prosecutor’s office, courts abroad, or international organizations, possessing the necessary knowledge and skills to conduct such an assessment (audit), and also having impeccable business reputation. Unfortunately, appointment of Pavlo Zhebrivskyi is questionable in terms of compliance of the candidate with the specified legislative requirements and endangers the credibility of the audit findings.

The above mentioned external evaluation of the law-enforcement agency will be conducted for the first time in Ukraine, and therefore it is important to pay special attention to the methodology of its execution. It should be in line with the best international practices in law-enforcement agencies audit. The methodology should also contain clear criteria and indicators for assessing NABU’s effectiveness. It should also contain an exhaustive list of grounds for the activities of the Bureau to be considered ineffective and for the activities of the Bureau’s Director to be considered unsatisfactory. The methodology should determine the mechanism for decision-making by the members of the external control commission and set the terms for the audit.

In addition, it is important to ensure that the data of pre-trial investigations, which may become available to the members of the commission in connection with the audit, are not disclosed.

Since the external evaluation of the Bureau’s activities is conducted for the first time, and the above-mentioned law provides for its annual conduct, experts believe that the first audit should only cover one year of NABU’s operation, since NABU started its pre-trial investigations in late 2015.

RPR Anticorruption Group calls on the members of the external control commission to determine and publicize performance evaluation criteria of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, which will be taken into account in the course of the audit. Experts emphasize that it is only a high quality methodology of NABU’s performance assessment and high level of transparency of the audit that can ensure confidence in its results.