How do we make Ukrainian anti-corruption institutions more efficient? How do we distinguish anti-corruption struggle from populism and political persecution? José Ugaz, member of the Board of Transparency International Ukraine, shared his views in his talk with Nataliya Humeniuk for “A Very Important Program”.
We’ve put together 10 most important points of the talk.
- Effective fight against corruption is impossible without political will. If there is political will, high-ranking corrupt officials can be brought to justice on a very short notice and get the convictions in a year or two.
- It is too early to assess the new government’s work. They have to show some results – to trigger transparent legal processes against corrupt officials. This is the only way to regain the trust of society.
- The structure of judicial system is to be changed. A good way to start would be to appoint judges to the Higher Anti-Corruption Court. It was a transparent process involving unbiased international partakers, who selected the best candidates.
- If the anti-corruption institutions do not interact, corrupt officials will win the fight. Corrupted entities usually are quite flexible and well managed.
- There is no such politician who wouldn’t say that fighting corruption is his main goal. Because the fight against corruption is politically expedient. The mission of TI’s Ukraine and other similar civic organizations is to try to control all the candidates, to receive information and make it publicly available.
- Lawlessness is a very negative factor in fighting corruption. The only restriction as to corruption investigations in the past is when the statute of limitation has expired.
- Corruption is corruption. Minor or top – we have to fight both.
- There is more corruption in the world nowadays, as there is more money in it. On the one hand, new technologies, new financial systems make it easier to access the money as well as move assets from one resource to another. On the other hand, there are more opportunities as to investigations, tracing all the operations, and the interaction between countries.
- One should not underestimate the pressure of society. Nothing will change, if you still have either the judges connected to corrupts, or powerful economic groups. The only way out is to mobilize the citizens, allies, journalists, even business managers, who are ready to change the environment and say: this can’t go on.
- Corruption is always fighting for its life. You cannot achieve good results in fighting corruption and then just sit to relax. You need to work on, because corruption always comes back.
José Ugaz has come to Ukraine invited by Transparency International Ukraine to celebrate 5 years of full accreditation of the Ukrainian chapter of the global movement Transparency International.
Source: hromadske.ua
