On June 22, 2015 the Prime Minister of Ukraine Arsenii Yatseniuk publicly responded to the conflict concerning the panel for selection of members of the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC). Acccording to Arsenii Yatseniuk, he is ready to substitute the Government’s representative in the selection panel and “even let civil society” represent the Government there.

Ukrainian civil society involved in reforms is sincerely welcoming the Government’s desire to solve the conflict concerning the NAPC selection panel as soon as possible. The Prime Minister’s participation in regulation of the problem and his readiness to change his representative in the panel is especially valuable for us.

At the same time, the issue of integrity of at least half of the panel remains open. As you know, the Verkhovna Rada’s Committee on Fighting Corruption has found a number of facts that show collusion of some civil society representatives who participated in the elections to the selection panel, and has taken a decision to address the Prosecutor General’s office with the request to study the legitimacy of those elections.

Taking into account the fact that the whole staff of the NAPC selection panel has already been registered by a correspondent Government’s decision, we require the Cabinet of Ministers to do the following to fulfill the Prime Minister’s words on practice:

1. Nullify the Cabinet of Ministers’ order regarding the selection panel’s staff due to the violations detected by the parliamentary Committee on Fighting Corruption and, if necessary, by means of own investigation.
2. To determine a newly authorized person representing the Cabinet of Ministers who will be delegated the organization matters of the new elections of the NGO-selected members of selection panel.
3. Interdepartmental Working Group coordinating the NAPC launch shall work out clear criteria for evaluation of the NGOs anti-corruption experience by the end of June 2015. These criteria shall be envisaged to use during the analysis of the participating organizations of the new elections of the NGO-selected members of selection panel for the sake of proper election of those representatives who can boast of their impeccable business reputation, high professional and moral qualities, outstanding social weight, and who will be able to form the NAPC choosing its members who have at least equal personal and professional qualities.

Urgent and diligent implementation of these steps will allow the Prime Minister of Ukraine personal controlling the anti-corruption reform and will make him sure that the National Agency will start its work properly.

At the same time the Reanimation Package of Reforms is ready to provide its comprehensive support to the Government both in what regards evaluation criteria development and broad coverage of the new elections of the NGO-selected members of the panel for the best professional anti-corruption organizations representation.