To:
Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine
The сopy to:
Ministry of Strategic Industries of Ukraine
Ministry of Defence of Ukraine
National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine
Office of the President of Ukraine
A Joint Statement of the Civil Society
Civil society urges the unblocking of defence procurement reform to prevent the possible return of post-Soviet corrupt practices. The Law “On Defence Procurement” came into force on January 1, 2021, but it does not work because the regulatory acts needed to implement it have not been developed and approved in a timely manner. Thus, defence procurement reform is under threat.The Ministry of Strategic Industries and the Ministry of Defenсe needed to develop a series of regulatory acts to reform defenсe procurement in accordance with Euro-Atlantic principles enshrined in the Law. As it was not fulfilled in a timely manner, implementation of the Law has failed. The deadlines set by the Law and the relevant Presidential Decree are overdue. There is no approved list of state customers in the defence sector, making it impossible to carry out any procurement procedures under the new law, including but not limited to the needs of the home front. The draft Cabinet of Ministers regulatory acts previously developed by the responsible ministries partially contradict the Law and preserve the current status quo: excessive state secrecy, lack of competition, lack of producers’ transparent access to closed procurement, lack of market pricing, and lack of a transparent and progressive model to determine the profits of monopoly enterprises. All these factors can lead to the reform’s complete failure.