According to Ivan Sikora, the high level of corruption in Ukraine and its systemic nature is the charge for uncompleted modernization and deceleration of public policy liberalization, along with selective rule of law and unawareness of corruption risks. During his approximately an hour speech, Ivan Sikora presented contemporary Ukrainian methodological deliberations in the field of anticorruption policy and prevention of conflict of interests on public service. A special focus was made on the current anticorruption policy issues at the national, regional and local levels. During the presentation, the needs of beneficiaries of the anticorruption policy were considered, as well as main issues related to declarative and imitation style of the state anticorruption policy.
In the speech a separate focus was made on the problem of conflict of interests on public service and on different methodological approaches to analyzing this phenomena in the environment of public society institutions. In particular, alternative approaches to monitoring of virtue while being on a public service. As a reminder, in summer of 2013, the corresponding methodological discussion was initiated by the “Open Society” Foundation.
The issues related to identification and prevention of a conflict of interests where analyzed in specific cases of members of the government, members of the Parliament, and local deputies activity. A separate focus was made on a trend to smooth political party differences of MPs when lobbying draft laws that have explicit sings of conflict of interests and gaining benefits by lobbyists. Such legislative initiatives frequently contradict to electoral programs. For example, draft law N3377 “On amending Budget Code (regarding cancellation of debt on target loan)” and draft law N3376 “On cancellation of debt on target loan, provided to the Enterprise of Union of Citizens “Kerch educational-production enterprise of Ukrainian community of blind persons “Krym-Pack”). Ukrainian Blind Community, submitted by Valeriy Sushkevych, the member of Parliament of Ukraine from “Batkivshchyna” faction, Valentyna Liutikova (Party of Regions faction) and Yaroslav Suhyi (Party of Regions faction). The subject of lobbying of the draft laws registered, is cancellation of a 5.6 mln. UAH debt of the “Krym-Pack” enterprise. The funds were provided by the Social Protection of Disabled Fund to execute in full the state social obligations to disabled persons that work at the enterprise. The conflict of interests is in gaining benefit by marriage couple Liutkivksi (the author of the draft law is Liutikov Volodymyr Ivanovych, the husband of the co-author of the draft law, Liutikova Valentyna Ivanivna). This draft law also creates a situation when mistakes of Volodymyr Liutikov, the Director of the enterprise “Krym-Pack”, the state should pay for, if no sanctions are applied to the Director of the enterprise that led to multi-million losses. Moreover, that legislative initiative contradicts clauses of the Budget Code, which directly prohibit cancellation of debt of enterprises to state on loans, except in the cases of bankruptcy and corresponding court decisions not in favor of the state.
As an example of a conflict of interests on a local level, a conflict of interests related to the activity of Oleksandr Sokolov, the City Mayor of Chernihiv, was analyzed. A number of other examples of ignoring corruption risks and conflict of interests were focused on when authorities of different ranks make decisions. The problem of end gainer of corruption schemes on the example of purchase of “Boyko Towers” was also considered. The author of the report stated the vision of the role of civil society in changing the anticorruption policy agenda for Ukraine.
The discussion of the report worked out by the meeting participants from the “Political Analyst Club” confirmed the importance of applying interdisciplinary approaches to researching the phenomenon of corruption and carrying on setting of indicators of efficiency and efficacy of policy results that are necessary for more detailed description of corruption practiceson the level of state and local budgets, and the ways to prevent them.
In the methodological context, the analysis of anticorruption policy requires a special attention. Such policy, traditionally, is considered as an institutional policy, that is called to compensate the deficiency of virtue in state servants behavior and prevent abusing power by branch economy politicians. Therefore, the problematic questions of anticorruption policy are focused on the issues of legislative regulation of state service, and at generating instruments of successful anticorruption policy the experts of administrative law join in. According to the participants of the Club, Chernikov Denis and Pancyr Serhiy, the success of anticuruption policy depends on the efficacy of the analysis and implementation of sector and substantive policies, that execute control and regulation of markets and sectors of economy. Roman Kobec made a speech on the vision of the further methodological development of the analysis of anticorruption policy.
Efforts of politicians, officials and entrepreneurs, that are united in unformal and social networks, to use public and power resources for influence on the market bear corruption risks. Thus, the center of attention of the researches should be also the business, as a field of formation of corruption risks on the soil of deficiency of free competition. The problem of maintaining the network of experts in institutional and sectoral policies for successful analysis of anticorruption policy is also obvious.
The video recording of Ivan Sikora report and the following discussion will shortly be placed on a specialized site “Analysis of Politics in Ukraine” (www.policy-analysis.org.ua) that will be created by support of the “Vidrodzheniya” International Foundation.
Reference:
The club of policy analytics was established in September 2013 and unites teachers, scientists and practitioners in state policy analysis. The goal of the Club is to discuss best methodological practices of Ukrainian an foreign analytics in the fields of policy analysis. The members of the Club are: Serhiy Pancyr (Kyiv-Mohyla Academy), Roman Kobetc (Institute of Philosophy), Eduard Rakhimkulov (Ukrainian Parliament Development Program), Valeriy Tertychka (Academy of State Management), Ihor Shevlyakov (Ukrainian Institute for Public Politics), Denis Chernyakov (independent expert on financial-budget and economic policy) and other renowned researches in the field of policy analysis.
