On Tuesday, October 14, the Verkhovna Rada
of Ukraine supported five anti-corruption
laws developed by the Government of Ukraine and the
President of Ukraine.
The anti-corruption package includes
the law of the President “On National
Anti-Corruption Bureau” and four Government’s
bills: “On principles of anti-corruption
policy in Ukraine (Anti-Corruption Strategy) for
2014 – 2017” (¹4284a), “On
prevention and counteraction to legalization (laundering) of the proceeds from
crime or terrorism financing, as well as financing proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction” (¹5067), “On preventing corruption»
(¹5113) and on determining ultimate beneficiaries of
legal persons and public figures (¹ 5114).
"The whole package submitted by the
President and the Government, developed by
international experts and the
main thing - Ukraine expects this package: fair and transparent state authority, fair prosecutors and
judges. And in order to make them fair, they
should be all brought to light," the PM underlined
introducing the bills at the Parliament.
He noted that the Government's
bill on National Anti-Corruption
Strategy in preparation for the second
reading has not received any comments from the Parliament.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk has stressed that
it is "a basic document how to
declare and win the war against
corruption."
Another Government’s law, according to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, is "actually National
Anti-Corruption Code, which provides for the
implementation of procedures for monitoring the life of officials of 1-3 categories -
and that is ministers, prime ministers - and the
introduction of monitoring for the life of prosecutors, judges and other
officials of the state authority, who can use their
powers in order to enrich."
The adopted laws have also established the
electronic declaring of all income and
expenses of civil servants, judges and prosecutors, as
well as the procedure for monitoring the life of
a civil servant and compliance with the income referred to
in the declaration.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk has informed that it is introduced the
procedure for disclosing all information
regarding the ownership of public servants, judges and
prosecutors and their relatives: "This is about the
disclosure of ownership both entrepreneurs and real
estate properties. Now any citizen of Ukraine will
have access to all public property registries and
information on the final owner of
a business entity. Now the companies are registered
on one person and the
actual owner is another person, including the
former and current state authorities. This will
be settled."
According to him, these laws
"make it possible to control all officials, judges and
prosecutors": "It is a
few steps ahead in the real fight
against corruption."
Following the adoption by the Parliament of
the Government’s bill on the definition of
ultimate beneficiaries of legal persons and public
figures (¹ 5114), Arseniy Yatsenyuk underlined:
"Offshore era is over in Ukraine. Now every
official will be "plainly visible". All
accounts, all property of the company will
be disclosed, and those who illegally own
them will be brought to justice.
"