14:32 23.05.2017

Transparency International regrets Ukraine not properly investigating corruption by current, former top officials

2 min read
Transparency International regrets Ukraine not properly investigating corruption by current, former top officials

Jose Ugaz, chairman of the global anticorruption movement of Transparency International, has expressed regret that Ukraine is not investigating corrupt activities by high-ranking officials, including representatives of the former government.

Ukraine received 29 points out of 100 in the corruption perception index for 2016. This is a rather bad result, because it gave Ukraine 131st place out of 176 countries, which means that Ukraine is at the bottom of this list, he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday.

According to Ugaz, the experts of the organization believe that the most prominent case of corruption is the activities of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. People all over the world, like in Ukraine, expected a very strong reaction in connection with Yanukovych's corruption to end the chain of impunity and that those people who were involved in corruption would be punished, he said.

At the same time, according to him, there is only one case about Viktor Yanukovych's high treason in Ukraine, but there is no serious investigation of his corrupt acts. We were very surprised when we came back this time, and found out there is not a single case in court against Yanukovych about corruption. But the case is only about accusing him of state treason, but this does not concern corruption. The various figures are mentioned which Yanukovych moved out from Ukraine, for example, $7.5 billion, $12 billion, $40 billion. There is not even a single position on how much money was withdrawn from Ukraine by Yanukovych, the representative of Transparency International said.

Ugaz said that proper work is not being done in this direction. There is impunity in Ukraine and this opinion was reported by representatives of Transparency International to the Prosecutor General and head of the NABU.

In turn, the executive director of Transparency International Ukraine Yaroslav Yurchyshyn said that despite the launch of the electronic declaration system, no one has yet been brought to responsibility for untrue information in the declaration. "It was promised to start a discussion on the anti-corruption court as a necessary mechanism of prosecution, taking into consideration the critical ineffectiveness of the judicial system in Ukraine. Unfortunately, the discussion has not started yet. The only bill which was registered not on the initiative of the president, but on the initiative of the deputies, hasn't been considered in essence until now," he said.

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