When commenting the decree on the Strategy of State Policy for Civil Society Support in Ukraine signed by the president, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Andrii Kliuiev declared that today the authorities realize that Ukraine’s efficient development is impossible without people’s participation, UNN reported.
“The brightest example is corruption,” Kliuiev said. “The high level of corruption does not allow reducing the shadow economy and, as a result, increasing the budget revenue. As a result, the state can hardly fulfill its commitments, including the social ones.
“Corruption minimization will allow increasing the return of the state investments. However, to achieve significant progress in this the whole society has to participate. Despite the fact that the majority of draft decisions of ministries and departments are published for public discussion, often only lobbyists participate in it and public interests remain unrealized.
“The authorities have to work in two directions. On the one hand, we have to strengthen the public institutions and, on the other hand, we have to systematically improve the procedures to allow people participating in discussions and decision-making of the state and local authorities and pressing for their fulfillment. I am speaking not only about cooperation of the authorities and NGOs, but about other forms of democracy as well: public meetings, hearings and local referendums.
“Making the authorities of any level more open and efficient depends on how fast and efficiently the economy is deregulated and on the reform of administrative services system. It is important to actively implement the ‘electronic management’ at all levels. The more information on the rules and procedures will be in the open access, the easier it will be for people to control the authorities and the fewer possibilities for corruption officials will have.”
Vitalii SHABUNIN, chairman of the Center for Corruption Resistance:
“We have an example of work of one organization: a lot of facts proving that purchases were made three times more expensive. After that we address the local public prosecutor’s office and get the reply: ‘Oops, we cannot see anything! Let the finance inspection (former State Control and Revision Service) deal with this!’ We are redirected there. The inspection gives the same reply: ‘We cannot see anything, everything is OK!’ What kind of dialog is needed then if there is an official document with specific facts showing the tender procedure, the date when it was held and the price of purchase which is several times higher than the market price? This is one more way to draw the public attention away.
“I think that we should not make things more complicated by adopting strategies or modifying documents. Obviously, the current prospects are not ideal but sufficient not to steal. We do not need any dialog; we just need the existing standards to be met. What can be more efficient than a specific complaint to the prosecutor clearly showing the violations? Finally, we collected the runarounds from the local authorities and complained to the Prosecutor General showing what every local official broke and what they did not do but had to, according to the law. What other dialog can be? We often hear that: ‘The whole society has to fulfill the anti-corruption strategy, etc.’ Wait a minute! There are prosecutors, Ministry of Home Affairs, Security Service of Ukraine, and Financial Inspection funded from our taxes to work on this! Why should I or a teacher or a doctor carry out the anti-corruption policy if there are prosecutors paid to do this?”
