The Anti-Corruption Group of the “Reanimation Package of Reforms” Civic Coalition is concerned by the information that the National Agency for Corruption Prevention (NACP) plans to amend its decision of 10 June by changing the dates of the e-declarations system launch.
It transpired that the NACP plans to launch on 15 August e-declarations not for all officials holding responsible and especially responsible position, but only for some of them, namely for MPs, local councils’ members, judges, prosecutors, other lower level officials. At the same time, the highest state officials – e.g. the President, the Prime Minister, Ministers, the Speaker of the Parliament, the Prosecutor General, the Security Service Head and others – will have to submit their declarations covering 2015 later.
We consider this to be an attempt of the highest political officials of the country to delay launching of the electornic asset disclosure for themselves in order to amend the law or block the e-declaration system’s work in another way in September-October.
We would like to remind that this is not the first attempt of the politicians to derail the launch of the new system of asset disclosure or undermine its efficiency:
The e-declaration system’s launch without further delay is Ukraine’s commitment to the IMF and to the EU under the Visa Liberalisation. The start of the electronic asset disclosure was expected last year, but was delayed due to the protracted setting up of the NACP. The National Agency, on 10 June, determined the date of the launch – 15 August for high-level officials and 1 January 2017 – for the rest of the officials; on 15 June, the bylaws necessary for the launch and functioning of the e-declaration system were sent to the Ministry of Justice for their state registration and it is not clear whether the Ministry has registered them. State registration in the Ministry of Justice and official publication of the NACP’s bylaws by the Ministry are pre-conditions for their enactment. To launch the system it is also necessary to obtain confirmation of the system’s information protection compliance with the technical standards at the special state authority – the State Agency for Information Protection.
In this regard, we demand: