The studies of the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) in Ukraine showed a fall of two points, in connection with which the country fell to the 126th place in the world rating and stopped at the level of 2017, Transparency International indicates in its report.

"The CPI is based on research for the past two years. Since the beginning of 2017, reforms and anti-corruption struggle in Ukraine started somewhat rolling back. The authorities made increasingly active attempts to restrict the independence of anti-corruption agencies, stalled the launch of the High Anti-Corruption Court, came up with arbitrary legislative restrictions. Not to mention the political bias of the NACP, the failed judicial reform and the lack of the proper reform of anti-corruption agencies," Executive Director of Transparency International Ukraine Andrii Borovyk said.

"Two points lost. Ukraine's score in Corruption Perceptions Index 2019 is 30 points out of 100. We have gone back to the level of 2017 and now rank 126th out of 180 countries. Our neighbors in the index are Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan and Djibouti," the report on the website of the company reads.

"Among its neighbors, Ukraine is ahead of Russia, which maintains its position (28 points, rank 137th). Out of the remaining neighbors, Poland is the expected leader with 58 points (rank 41st), followed by Slovakia (50 points, rank 59th). Belarus gained one point and now ranks 66th with 45 points. Some of our neighbors have lost points this year: Romania lost three points, Hungary two points, and Moldova one point," according to the document.

"CPI leaders are mostly the same. The first place is shared by New Zealand and Denmark with 87 points each. Notably, eight out of ten countries in the top ten are representatives of Western and Northern Europe," it says.

"At the beginning of 2019, Transparency International Ukraine provided 12 recommendations which could have improved Ukraine's CPI score. As of the end of the year, only six were completely or partially implemented, and even that happened in the last quarter of 2019. Monopoly of the SBU for wiretapping (lawful interception of telecom networks) has been abolished, as has public monopoly for forensic reviews, which renders stalling of the investigation in this part impossible. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine abolished discriminatory electronic declarations for anti-corruption activists. On October 18, the law rebooting the NACP came into effect," the report says.

"The parliament provided an opportunity for privatization of 500 state-owned enterprises through the electronic system of auctions ProZorro.Sale. In October 2019, the parliament abolished the prohibition for privatization of a number of state-owned enterprises," it says.

The issues that remain unresolved, according to the document, are as follows: ensuring the effective work of the beneficial owners register, increased oversight of political party funding, change in the formation of judicial governance bodies, restoring the credibility of the Specialized Anti-corruption Prosecutor's Office, stripping the SBU and the National Police of the powers to investigate economic crimes, and punishing those guilty of attacks on anti-corruption activists.