"Anti-corruption activists" Shabunin and Nikolov received USD 1.5 million in just a year, but are asking Ukrainians to help them financially. Shabunin also continues to receive a military salary, without ever starting service. Such use of millions of dollars of US aid and budget funds under the pretext of fighting corruption by organizations such as the Anti-Corruption Action Centre (AntAC) (Shabunin), the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) can be called corruption 2.0, when millions are spent with zero effect, - writes expert Oleg Posternak.
"Anti-corruption activists" Shabunin and Nikolov, who have appropriated USD 1.5 million in just a year, are asking Ukrainians to support them financially. The scandal with the termination of funding for Ukrainian anti-corruption activists by American taxpayers exposed such a concept as corruption 2.0: this is when millions of dollars are appropriated in exchange for nothing in the name of fighting corruption. And after all this, these people come to the public space and ask Ukrainians to donate to them," Posternak wrote.
He noted that USAID paid Shabunin's Anti-Corruption Action Centre up to USD 1.5 million in just 12 months.
"With this money, up to 5,000 fpvs could have been purchased for the front. Instead, Shabunin and Nikolov spent it on themselves. Over USD 100,000 in monthly salaries. Such a powerful fight against corruption will be enough also for their grandchildren," he noted.
At the same time, the expert recalled that Shabunin receives several hundred thousand hryvnias a year from the state as a military salary, but has not yet arrived at his new place of service.
"They've been waiting for Shabunin for a long time at the mechanized field bakery of the food warehouse 218 of the Joint Center for the Logistics Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, where he was assigned as the commander of the unit. He was supposed to arrive there a long time ago, but he never arrived. All this time, the unit has been without a commander. Because the commander - on a "combat mission" - is destroying a portion of small fries and a hamburger at McDonald's in Kyiv. A photo of a "hero" who can't get to his military unit has appeared on the Internet," he said.
Analyzing the real achievements of "anti-corruption activists", the expert noted that, in addition to Shabunin's AntAC, neither the NABU nor the HACC, which operate in this area, have anything to boast about.
"The National Anti-Corruption Bureau, which is supposedly monitored by the Anti-Corruption Action Centre, has spent more money than it has caught corrupt officials. The agency has appropriated almost USD 20 million in grant funds in the last 2 years alone. We haven't heard anything about the cases of top officials that the NABU would have brought to a real verdict in recent years," he stressed.
Posternak recalled the Bureau's real "achievements" - the "leak" of information about NABU's unprofessionalism from its ex-detective Denysiuk and the escape to Romania of another ex-detective Arshavin. However, nothing has been heard about the imprisonments of top corrupt officials, he noted.
Another recipient of American aid, according to Posternak, is the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC), to which a separate line is devoted in the AntAC report.
"The HACC also appropriated millions from USAID for "air" programs. As a result, we got a scandal with the judges of the HACC, who broke bad and lost all sense of direction: there was the suing of funds from the state, the purchase of luxury housing with cars, and the extortion of preferential housing loans for "poor" judges against the backdrop of millions of US aid. All this is under the close supervision of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre with money from USAID," Posternak concluded.
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