The National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NAPC) monitored about 3,000 draft documents proposed for consideration by the Verkhovna Rada and the Cabinet of Ministers. Corporate governance and defence and public procurement were the top 3 areas in which the NAPC held the anti-corruption expertise.

The NAPC reported attempts to establish “manual control” in state-owned enterprises. This is a question of laying down norms that could promote the appointment of “necessary” heads. The agency has already made three attempts to cancel vacancies for management positions and limit the powers of the supervisory board.

New corruption schemes could also be facilitated by regulations created for implementing the Law on Defence Procurement. This is a question of regulating the formation of volumes and features of purchases for defence needs. For example, the NAPC identified the possibility of receiving bribes for artificially lowering the price of defence products. This risk was recorded in the order, which provides a non-exhaustive list of cases that may lead to a revision of the initial price of defence products.

In addition, the proposed draft acts could contribute to less transparency in procurement. In particular, information on companies with defence contracts could be more limited due to the undefined features of selecting participants and executors of state contracts in the special register.

NAKO recently also appealed to the NAPC with a detailed analysis of the bill on providing housing for service members. In response to our letter, the agency announced it had started monitoring the bill and the profile Committee postponed considering it.