NACP to ask Zelenskyy to veto law that allows officials to avoid liability for non-declaration of property up to UAH 1.3 million

The National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) will ask President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to veto the law adopted by the Verkhovna Rada on September 5, which allows officials to avoid liability for non-declaration of property up to UAH 1.3 million. This is stated in the NACP message, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"First of all, the adopted bill supports the norm according to which a person who submitted knowingly inaccurate information in a declaration in the amount of up to UAH 1.3 million, in case of payment of a fine, does not fall into the Unified State Register of persons who committed corruption or corruption-related offenses," the statement says.

The NACP notes that false declaration is one of the most socially dangerous corruption-related offenses which require administrative responsibility.

"Such changes have only one goal - to contribute to the concealment of information about the funds of civil servants, who, after paying a fine of UAH 17,000 to UAH 42,500, will remain in office and will not receive any restrictions on access to public service in the future"  the national agency notes.

In addition, the NACP claims that lawmakers supported the norm, which actually destroys the Register of Corrupt Officials.

"We are talking about amendments to Art. 59 of the Law of Ukraine "On Prevention of Corruption" that conceal the data of the Register from citizens, journalists and virtuous leaders by not entering information about persons who are brought to disciplinary responsibility for committing corruption or corruption-related offenses, as well as removing most of the existing information about persons who are prosecuted for co mmitting administrative and criminal corruption-related and corruption offenses," the statement said.

The NACP notes that today the Register consists of 46,556 people, of which 1,961 people were brought to disciplinary responsibility, 29,457 to administrative responsibility, and 15,138 to criminal responsibility. After the above-mentioned changes, 5,021 persons will tentatively remain in the Register, more than 10,000 people convicted of corruption crimes will be removed.

It is noted that such changes will make it possible not to take into account the fact of conviction of a person for corruption crimes when appointing judges, senior positions in state bodies and local governments, since when appointing to these and other important positions, a special check is carried out, including for the presence of a person in the Register.

The NACP claims that after the removal of almost 80% of the Register data, neither the President, nor the Prime Minister, nor the ministers, nor the heads of other authorities, nor public organizations, nor the public integrity council and the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ), which in the near future should ensure the appointment of more than 2,000 judges, when making decisions on the appointment will not have an official source of data on persons who were included in it.

The NACP reports that it will send an appeal to the President with a request to veto the bill adopted by Parliament "On Amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses and Other Laws of Ukraine on Improving the Procedure for Bringing to Justice Persons Authorized to Perform the Functions of the State or Local Self-Government" (No. 9587-D), which will allow returning it for re-consideration to the Verkhovna Rada.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, the NACP said that it restored open access to the Register of Corrupt Officials.

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