Cabinet suggests Rada allow NACP to check property acquired by declarants before being appointed to civil service

The Cabinet of Ministers has suggested that the Verkhovna Rada abolish restrictions on the powers of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) to check the assets of civil servants who have already passed the audit, and to check the property acquired by declarants before being appointed to the post of civil service.

The corresponding bill (No. 10262) on amendments to the law "On Prevention of Corruption" was registered on the website of the Rada on November 14, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

These changes are proposed to bring the provisions of the law into line with the conclusions of the European Commission on Ukraine.

In particular, it is proposed to exclude the rule of law, which provides that during the full check of the declaration, the NAPC does not check the grounds for the acquisition of real estate and vehicles acquired by the declaration subject or his family member before the day the person was elected (appointed) to office, in connection with the presence of which the obligation to submit the declaration arose for the first time.

The bill also provides that a full check of the declaration is carried out in part of the declaration objects not covered by a full check of the declarations of the relevant declaration subject for previous periods, except when the NAPC received new information on the object that was checked, or if there are new sources of information that were not known or were not available to the National Agency during the preliminary full check.

Now the law says that the information indicated for the previous period by the declaration subject in the declaration of a person authorized to perform the functions of the state or local self-government, which has already been the subject of a NAPC audit, cannot be subject to re-check and the results of which no violations have been found.

Justice Minister Denys Maliuska on Facebook has already commented on the initiative, which will check the grounds for acquiring objects by a person before entering public office.

"You sometimes need to check, for example, when a new politician declares a yard with cash before taking office. Do we not want him to confirm his possible bribes with a declared yard, allegedly acquired before politics? With real estate/cars/financial obligations, coming up with a scheme with far-fetched wealth is more difficult, but also quite realistic," he wrote.

The Minister also noted that Ukraine is now at the stage of European integration, where there is neither time nor opportunity to enter into negotiations or criticism of the recommendations of the European Commission - it should be done as recommended and then, after a positive decision on negotiations, show cases of excessive control, unreasonable barriers and agree on a balanced restriction of retrospective checks of declarations.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, in October the law on the restoration of e-declaration came into force, the NAPC will open public access to the register on December 10.

In accordance with the requirements of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, the Cabinet of Ministers also proposes to the Verkhovna Rada to increase the maximum number of the staff of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) from 700 to 1,000 people, providing, in particular, an increase in the number of people in charge from 500 to 750 people.

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