It is harder to understand, whether the spine of the corruption dragon is so strong that it cannot be broken by numerous anti-corruption bodies, or these institutions do not put too much pressure on the body of the insidious monster. So who will win? And it depends not least on the approaches and methods of struggle, which must be correctly written out. And it’s not all right with that.
People’s deputies are dissatisfied
For systemic overcoming of negative phenomena in a society nothing can be done without a corresponding document. For example, fighting corruption – there must be clearly delineated goals and objectives of this complex work. Such a document is the Anti-Corruption Strategy, is adopted every few years and has the status of the law. The previous one, for 2014-2017, has exhausted itself, and the new one, for 2018-2020, has not yet been voted. Why did this happen, because almost half of 2018 is behind us, and for the implementation of the document after its adoption few months will be needed?
Draft Law of Ukraine No. 8324 “On Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2018-2020” was prepared by the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption. In late April, after approval by the Government, it was registered in the Verkhovna Rada. As noted, the document contains new principles of state anti-corruption policy, which will determine the priority measures to prevent and counteract corruption for the next three years. Its point is aimed at reducing the level of this negative phenomenon in the country. However, the bill did not overcome even the sieve of the profile committee.
“We decided to return it to the subject of the legislative initiative for revision,” said people’s deputy Viktor Chumak, deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Prevention and Combating Corruption. – This is not a strategy. It’s just a chaotic set of activities, wishes, someone’s visions. Strategy is an image. It should answer the question what we will do in order to come to something “.
People’s deputy Natalya Novak, a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legal Policy and Justice, agrees with her colleague. She stressed to DUMKA that the Strategy is a general one, although it should determine the main directions: “If we want to have a result, we need to specify that we will do something like this till that time, and that should be done till that time, that is, to see the results. And when it’s just a beautiful program to put a tick, that’s it, we adopted the next Strategy, then it is not necessary for anyone. The society already has a lot of documents that are not being implemented, but we need one that would be a roadmap for the actual overcoming of corruption in the country”.
What’s wrong?
Not only deputies, but experts are also convinced that the proposed draft of Anti-Corruption Strategy is not such inherently.
“The document should demonstrate to the society and foreign partners how the Government seeks to “break” the terrible situation with corruption, which completely degraded almost all the mechanisms of the state,” said Ruslan Ryaboshapka for DUMKA, Deputy Minister of Justice (2014) and member of the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (2016-2017). – For this, the authorities must demonstrate the existence of a systematic understanding of the problem and a vision of ways to solve it, incarnating them in a small number, and perhaps the only central idea of the Anti-Corruption Strategy. The strategy is a kind of road along which the authorities will move in overcoming corruption”.
According to Mr. Ryaboshapka, the main idea of the document should be the elimination of corruption risks in the economy. After all, it is corruption that does not enable the domestic economy to earn money effectively. Hence, the most critical problems in Ukraine: lack of investment and decent salaries, labor emigration, under-funded and poor-quality pension system, educational and medical industries.
“The new Strategy should provide a vision of the authorities, how to remove the corruption obstacles for the free conduct of entrepreneurial activities in the state,” continued an ex-member of the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption. – Unfortunately, the presented project is simply a “composite hodgepodge” of measures, which may be somehow related to corruption, not united for any purpose.
Evidence of a poor quality project is that the Government has been trying for several months to make the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption to finalize the document. However, because of the pressure of European donors, who “invested” sufficiently large funds in the development of the project, the government was forced to submit to the Parliament an openly bad document. Representatives of the same donor tried to “squeeze” the draft Strategy through the parliamentary Committee, but people’s deputies turned out to be principled in this matter”.
“The Strategy requires further development,” explained to DUMKA Ivan Sikora, an expert from the Open Society Foundation. “It is not clear how the proposed document in the measured projections will affect the implementation of one of the key reforms outlined in the Ukraine 2020 Strategy for Sustainable Development and formulated as follows: “The main goal of the anti-corruption reform is a significant reduction of corruption in Ukraine, reducing the losses of the state budget and business through corruption activities, as well as raising Ukraine’s position in international ratings that assess the level of corruption”.
According to Mr. Sikora, it is unclear how many losses of the state budget and business because of corruption activities will be reduced. There is also no answer to the question of how much the position of our country in international ratings on assessing the level of corruption will improve.
“Strategies without real goals, make no sense,” assured DUMKA Olena Scherban, a lawyer at the Center for Combating Corruption. – And the first thing the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption should do (and this is the requirement of the IMF, Europeans, Ukrainian international partners and society) is to properly verify the declarations. If we talk about the Strategy, then this document is nothing else but a piece of paper. And it will remain so, until the specialized anti-corruption bodies start fulfilling their tasks”.
To hear the public
It is obviously easier to criticize a document than to suggest something constructive. Were there any attempts to influence the content of the anti-corruption strategy, to improve it? Especially since it should have been introduced to the public. According to Ivan Sikora, some of the proposals of the Open Society Fund were taken into account, in particular, to ensure publicity of the discussion of the Strategy. And after criticism, they announced all the annexes to the draft document.
“The draft Anti-Corruption Strategy has no task,” the expert said. – Our proposal for specifying tasks within each of the sections is not taken into account. The task is absent in the text of the Strategy, as, indeed, in the previous one, for 2014-2017. In the text there are only activities (specific actions aimed at the fulfillment of goals, not tasks). For what are these measures, whether they are adequate to the assigned task and how far it will be possible to approach the solution of existing problems – is unclear. That is, in fact, there are no answers to how to achieve the goal, or the answer is very blurry and can be arbitrarily interpreted.
Moreover, some of these activities are actually tasks. These different terms are delineated in similar state policy documents, but in the draft of anti-corruption strategy, despite our proposals, they were never delineated. It’s not a secret that one of the reasons for the low effectiveness of anti-corruption policy is precisely this kind of fuzziness, which leads to manipulation of data, shifting of responsibility and arbitrary interpretation of effective indicators of policy implementation”.
“The National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption sent the draft of the Strategy, as far as is known, to specialized organizations,” said Olena Scherban. “But we received proposals to be included in the work practically a few days before it was sent to the Cabinet, that is, it was already late. Therefore, we did not manage to make any significant proposals. The discussion with the public was rather formal and probably initiated by the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption solely in order to be able to tell the public: we wanted to attract everyone”.
The importance of timing
Despite the fact that the document should be ready, as they say, still “for yesterday”, its adoption can be delayed for an indefinite period. After the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption Strategy has been finalized, the proper parliamentary committee should give the best. Subsequently, the adoption of the law in the Verkhovna Rada will take place, then within three months after the effective date the Government should approve a national program on the implementation of the principles of the state anti-corruption policy in Ukraine for 2018-2020. That is, at least the current year, 2018, can already be crossed out.
“Why did the draft of Anti-Corruption Strategy “wander” so long in government corridors? This question is primarily to the Government, – Ivan Sikora is convinced. – Taking into account the fact that the project is likely to be finalized, we will not have a State program for implementing the principles of state anti-corruption policy in Ukraine. There is already a peculiar tradition – the Strategy for 2014-2017 was adopted only in October 2014. Not surprisingly, the new one can repeat the previous precedent”.
“The issue of timing is of no fundamental importance in comparison with the quality of the document,” said Ruslan Ryaboshapka. – If the Government proposes a full-fledged strategic document and it is supported by the parliamentary coalition, then there is much more chance for the preparation of a quality anti-corruption program and its implementation. And this is provided that, for the Government, the implementation of this program will indeed be of fundamental importance”.
Mr. Ryaboshapka drew attention to the fact that a change of power will occur in the country next year. Therefore, it would be correct for both the anti-corruption strategy and the government program to be proposed by the new Cabinet of Ministers and Parliament, because they will be responsible to the voters for their implementation.
Stupor of authorities
One of the points of the Anti-Corruption Strategy refers to “the completion of the reform of the judiciary”. Meanwhile, in late spring, people’s deputies did not accept in the second reading the draft law “On the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine” (SACCU), introduced by President Poroshenko and voted by the Parliament in the first reading on March 1 this year.
However, the existence of such a court is only one of the elements of anti-corruption struggle. It is not enough to have the arsenal of necessary state bodies, it is necessary that they work effectively, there should be motivation.
“The Government’s motivation to fight corruption is extremely important, which should be manifested both in proper monitoring of the implementation of anti-corruption legislation and in responding appropriately to facts that indicate the improper performance of the powers, assigned to them by the anti-corruption bodies,” Ivan Sikora said. “Among such facts is a selective or formal response to signs of corruption offenses, delaying pre-trial investigation and transferring cases to the court, delaying the consideration of cases in courts and sentences that do not meet the expectations of the society of fair punishment”.
“When deputies hear the words” fighting corruption “, then they come to a stupor and appropriate decisions have not been passed much recently,” Natalya Novak assured. “This is the question of declarations, and the Anti-Corruption Court … There is no agreed position, the decision is delayed”.
The corrupt dragon does not want to tread on one’s own tail. What can we say about breaking his spine? But there is no way out – the corrupt monster must be destroyed.
So how to overcome corruption?
DUMKA asked the well-known Ukrainian: how do we really overcome the corruption manifestations?
Oleh Pokalchuk, social psychologist:
“Anywhere in the world the corruption is not being “overcoming”, it is minimized through the digitization of services and the complete elimination of the intermediate links of the bureaucracy, with a change in the management system, when it becomes unprofitable because of the created circumstances. And only then – tough economic repression, from which one cannot hide any property by rewriting it to relatives. The deprivation of liberty is advisable in the event that the corrupt act may be associated with sabotage or other harm to the national interests of Ukraine. With petty bribery (and it is really massive), a “two-warning system” may be appropriate, as in the legal proceedings of some USA states, when for a third similar violation the offender will not have any indulgences. On the contrary”.
Svitlana Myrvoda, People’s Artist of Ukraine:
“Overcoming corruption in Ukraine is not easy, sometimes it seems impossible. Society is sick and needs a surgeon. Like a fish that spoils from the head, it is already spoiled to the tail. At all levels and in all spheres, we no longer notice, accustomed to bribes, lies, theft. And yet, I place the hope on the youth. Only with high moral characteristics a leader can demand integrity from his subordinates and the execution of laws. The authorities must be nationally conscious and rigid, because democracy has begun to play and has grown into permissiveness. The punishment for breaking the law is for everyone. And you should start with yourself – do not take and not give a reward (bribe) to a judge, doctor, teacher, police, pay taxes from all earnings, honestly and objectively treat healthy competition. I am for cardinal changes and transformations”.
Andrii Kokotyukha, writer:
“There is no single recipe for overcoming corruption in Ukraine. Now we are experiencing exactly the times that are shown in the Italian TV series “Sprut”, created in the 1980s. We need a person or a group of people, who have certain powers and are able to take responsibility. We call our laws bad, but even for these bad laws, there are no loyal servants. Only in Ukraine, at least someone starts to take into account the law and represent it, corruption will begin to disappear slowly”.
Text: Viktor Tsvilikhovsky
