THE FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION IN POST-WAR UKRAINE

Ukraine will exit the war into a situation in which its anti-corruption institutional framework will be weaker than it was before the war. There will also be fewer anti-corruption experts in the country, and it will - if countries keep their promises concerning the reconstruction of Ukraine - literally be flooded with foreign material and financial assistance. The acceptability of corruption as a possible means of solving problems will be at least as great as it was prior to the war, especially as regards high-level corruption.

As a precondition for successfully fighting corruption, specialized Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies will need to begin functioning at full capacity as soon as possible: by bringing back their staff from the battlefields, by recruiting the requisite new staff, and by switching from “war mode” to business mode.

Participation  of civil society in Ukraine in these activities as well as its return to “normality” will be essential. However, non-governmental organizations will simply not be in a position to achieve their pre-war levels of operation without considerable financial input from domestic and international donors, many of whom discontinued their financing during the war. Even if the necessary funds are made available, a way needs to be found to attract back the non-governmental anti-corruption experts who were forced to abandon their anti-corruption pursuits because of the war.

Prevention

The reconstruction of the country and the incoming humanitarian aid are bound to increase the appetites of a few individuals both in Ukraine and abroad who wish take advantage of the situation and to benefit from it. Therefore, how both activities – the distribution of humanitarian aid and the reconstruction of the country – are organized will be of crucial importance.

Simple, clear, and absolutely transparent mechanisms in both areas will have to be developed in cooperation between the international donors and the Ukrainian government. Without exception, it will need to be clear right from the beginning which parts of the government and which other organizations are responsible for which part of the operation, from acceptance of aid or reconstruction money, to making decisions concerning where, when, and for which purposes the aid or reconstruction money will be spent, right through to the allocation and ultimate spending of money. It will be absolutely essential for each of the organizations dealing with the distribution of humanitarian aid and reconstruction of the country to have embedded anti-corruption experts who will participate in daily activities and who will not answer to the heads of these aid organizations but instead to the heads of their own, anti-corruption organizations. In the most important organizations (those dealing with the largest portions of aid or money), experts will need to be either specialized representatives of civil society or of foreign donors or both. The National Anti-Corruption Prevention Commission can play an important role in these activities, ensuring the consistency of the approach and implementation of the agreed principles.

In addition to reports on the use of aid or reconstruction money, regular reports on issues such as good governance, transparency, and integrity will also need to be prepared, brought to the attention of the government/international community, and published. To ensure compliance with these obligations, international donors will need to introduce and apply strict conditionality. If not, the corruption temptation will simply be too strong.

Law enforcement

After the war, specialized anti-corruption agencies, i.e. NABU and SAPO, will have an extremely important role to play. In order to do so. 

Given the understandable sensitivity of the public and the utter abhorrence of acts of corruption committed during or in relation to the war, NABU and SAPO will have to heavily engage in the swift investigation and prosecution of well-founded suspicions of war-related corruption offences. This would include those offences committed during the distribution of humanitarian aid and/or the reconstruction of the country, both tasks that may take quite some time. Therefore, NABU and SAPO will need to either establish special units for these areas or have their investigators and prosecutors specialize in dealing with these topics. All international assistance in any form, from financial support, to training, through to embedding foreign subject matter experts, investigators, and prosecutors, will be of extreme importance for any effective investigations and prosecutions conducted by NABU and SAPO. The government can also be of considerable assistance, if by nothing else, by ensuring the commitment and full support of other state bodies, especially those dealing with the distribution of humanitarian aid and the reconstruction of the country.

The level of support provided to the activities of NABU and SAPO by the Ukrainian government will be the best possible test of its genuine and sincere will to tackle corruption offences committed before, during, and after the war. Without providing the necessary level of support to NABU and SAPO or even by tasking other less autonomous state authorities to deal with these offences will simply mean that the government does not want independent, objective, and impartial investigation and prosecution of corruption offences.

Key Participants

1. Ministry of Justuce
2. General Prosecutor of Ukraine
3. Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO)
4. High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine
5. National Agency on Corruption Prevention
6. National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine
7. State Financial Monitoring Service
8. Asset Recovery and Management Agency
9. Verkhovna Rada's Committee on Anti-Corruption Policy