In light of the newly adopted Law "On Prevention of Corruption", which comes into force on 26 April, launching the main corruption preventive institution and its subsequent operation become topical issues. Participating anti-corruption experts talked about issues and obstacles that will have to be tackled in launching the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption (NAPC). International experience of establishing anti-corruption preventive agencies was widely explored and quoted and visions offered for a coherent action plan for the government, public, and international community to launch the Agency.

 

Spread out in time from April until September next year, three priorities for an effective corruption prevention system include the launch of NAPC per se, expansion of its functions and adoption of necessary regulatory instruments, methodologies and toolkits, as well as facilitating delivery of the functions as envisaged by law.

 

Roman Greba, Deputy Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, recently appointed to spearhead the process of selecting the 5 members of the collegiate NAPC through a participatory and transparent process, presented his vision of the procedure and immediate action. He maintained that the government was taking the process as a priority and expressed hope for a prompt and high-quality selection process.

 

One of the masterminds of anti-corruption reform, Ruslan Ryaboshapka, elaborated on the roadmap that contained both immediate priorities and longer-term activities that would launch an effective corruption prevention regime in Ukraine. The roadmap demonstrated is also deeply embedded into the National Anticorruption Programme for 2015-2017 that was recently adopted by the Cabinet of Ministers and is awaiting official publication.

 

Talking of regional good practices in establishing anti-corruption preventive agencies, UNDP expert Maksym Klyuchar emphasized that the agency's establishment by itself does not affect the anti-corruption dynamics. In fact, the CPI could actually continue going down in a country despite launch of an anticorruption agency. Some of the more relevant predictors of anticorruption successes were, on the other hand, equal and fair relations with all political forces, transparency and effectiveness of the launch, wise use of initial resources and internal leadership combined with internal pressure of the civil society and external pressure of conditionality.

 

 

Andriy Kuharuk, OECD expert, elaborated on an overview of positive and negative developments in the anticorruption sphere and noted that while Ukraine was up for a good start, it currently is at the crossroads that will determine the future trajectory.

 

The discussion allowed not only to emphasize the importance of the anticorruption preventive work (as an essential complement to the investigative and repressive actions), but also resulted in a broad consensus for the next immediate steps in this sphere. Now, as with any new process, here comes the time to "just do it" through cooperation and accord in action.