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The G7 group of countries late on March 29 urged Ukrainian authorities to cancel electronic asset declarations for anti-corruption activists and amnesty those of them who fail to file declarations by the April 1 deadline.
“G7 ambassadors remain deeply concerned about the looming 1 April e-declaration filing deadline for international members of the supervisory boards of state-owned enterprises and anti-corruption activists,” the ambassadors said in a joint statement. “We strongly encourage members of the Verkhovna Rada to find a legislative solution at their next seating to cancel the requirements as recommended by the Venice Commission, or postpone their application.”
The G7 ambassadors also encouraged “the Rada to provide a temporary amnesty provision for those individuals who do not file by the deadline to give time for the Rada to find a lasting solution.”
“The current e-declaration requirements are at odds with Ukraine’s international obligations and international best practice,” the G7 ambassadors said. “They discourage recruitment and retention of qualified international members of supervisory boards of state-owned companies, essential to improving corporate governance in Ukraine and increasing economic growth.”
They also said that “an independent civil society is essential to a vibrant democracy.”
“The asset declaration system is meant to hold public officials accountable, not place an unnecessary burden and pressure on civil society,” the G7 ambassadors said. “The current requirements will severely impede Ukraine’s fight against corruption.”
Anti-corruption activists will have to file electronic asset declarations identical to those of government officials by April 1. The Verkhovna Rada missed the last deadline for abolishing the requirement on March 22.
The National Agency for Preventing Corruption on March 29 issued an interpretation that limited the category of anti-corruption activists who must file declarations. However, the NAPC’s statement contradicts its own previous statements and the law, and anti-corruption activists who are outside this category can still be prosecuted for e-declarations regardless of its statement, Rouslan Riaboshapka, a former top NAPC official, said on March 30.
There are no equivalents of such declarations for anti-corruption activists in the West.
Ukraine’s civil society groups and Western partners have criticized e-declarations for anti-corruption activists as a potential tool for discrediting them and fabricating administrative and criminal cases against them.
In July, the NAPC said that any individuals who get funds or provide services as part of anti-corruption programs must file electronic declarations identical to those of government officials. The NAPC also said in March that even those who have attended offline or online anti-corruption courses must declare their assets.
Meanwhile, almost five months after whistleblowers exposed alleged large-scale corruption at the NAPC, the investigation into it has seen no progress.
Hanna Solomatina and Oksana Divnich, top officials from the NAPC, said in November that the agency was involved in large-scale corruption and completely controlled by the Presidential Administration. The NAPC and the Presidential Administration denied the accusations.
Solomatina published what she says is correspondence with Oleksiy Horashchenkov, a Presidential Administration official, in which he is trying to give her orders. The Kyiv Post has also obtained the documents of an audit on which the corruption investigation is based.
In November, the NAPC corruption case was transferred on the orders of Chief Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytsky and Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko from the independent National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine to the presidentially controlled SBU, in what critics, including Solomatina, believe to be an effort to destroy the case.
