It has been over two months since whistleblower Hanna Solomatina accused NAPC and APU officials of fraud with conclusions of declaration verifications. Over this time, a few more people who joined Solomatina in her stance have been notified of their forthcoming dismissal. SSU has held interrogations but seems to be in no hurry to use the evidence and serve officials reported by Solomatina with charges.
On November 14, Hanna Solomatina publicly reported criminal violations by NAPC management, telling about falsification of verification of officials’ electronic declarations. Solomatina filed a statement with the NABU on criminal offenses committed by an organized criminal group consisting of officials from the NAPC and other agencies. The violation in question was actions committed for receipt of undue benefits in especially large amounts.
During questioning by the NABU, Solomatina gave a statement on the actions by Head of the NAPC Nataliia Korchak as well as members of the National Agency Skopych and Radetskyi. The whistleblower’s testimony also included director of the Department of Observance of Legislation on Conflict of Interest and Other Restrictions Pysarenko, first deputy head of the Main Department of Strategic Planning and Urgent Provision of the Presidential Administration Oleksandr Horashchenkov, deputy head of First Directorate of the Main Office on Fight against Corruption and Organized Crime of the Security Service of Ukraine (former advisor to Korchak) Karpushyn.
All of them could subsequently be served with charges. However, the case was re-qualified. Prosecutor General of Ukraine referred it to the SSU, which he claimed to be done in order to avoid the conflict of interest. It has been almost three months since the whistleblower first addressed the NABU. The reported officials are yet to be served with charges.
Currently, the SSU does not seem to take any action to verify or refute facts of third party influence of SSU and AP officials on decision-making in the NAPC. It is evident from the lack of court decisions of investigative judges on approving the permission for the SSU to obtain information and documents from the NAPC – that is, investigators do not study information provided by mobile operators, nor do they seize computer equipment.
In this situation, it seems hardly possible to speak of proper pre-trial investigation of the criminal proceeding by the body whose officials may have been involved in influencing NAPC’s decisions.
Hanna Solomatina was the first but not the only person who had the courage to make a public statement about violations in the NAPC. From the moment of her statement filed with the NABU, she has been supported by two other whistleblowers – Oksana Dyvnych, deputy of internal audit sector, and Vadym Nikolayev, head of corruption prevention and identification sector.
Solomatina, Dyvnych and Nikolayev have all been questioned both by NABU detectives and SSU investigators. They have been consistently speaking about their willingness to help the investigation in every way possible and have publicly reaffirmed their readiness to provide all the necessary evidence and testimony at their disposal.
As Dyvnych and Nikolayev officially remain NAPC staff members, their active stance and willingness to cooperate with the investigators made them target of effective workplace repressions by NAPC management. The NAPC seems to be trying to force the whistleblowers into resigning. NAPC management started disciplinary inspections of the whistleblowers. For instance, Nikolayev received an “admonition.” At the end of December 2017, Dyvnych and Nikolayev received orders on restructuring of the NAPC departments where they worked, which would lead to their dismissal effective March 1, 2017.
The fourth whistleblower and target of repressions by NAPC management is Petro Petrenko, employee of the corruption prevention and identification sector, who worked under Nikolayev. He supported his manager’s stance. But on November 28, 2017 he was dismissed, which he believes to be in violation of the existing procedure. The official reason was failure to pass the probation. Petrenko has already filed a statement with the court concerning illegitimacy of his dismissal (the date of hearing yet unknown) as well as a statement concerning a crime on major violation of the labor law, upon which a criminal proceeding was started. Hopefully, Petrenko will be recognized as a victim.
SSU’s unwillingness to pursue timely and proper investigation of the proceeding based on Hanna Solomatina’s statement is evident. Procedural management in prosecution accountable to the Prosecutor General have to reinforce the quality control over investigation of the proceeding. Waiting and ineffective investigation lead to considerable loss of time and possible destruction of evidence. The likelihood of serving the notice of suspicion to NAPC officials and other individuals who influenced decision-making in the NAPC is ever shrinking and tending towards zero
SSU investigator has also failed to identify contradictions in witnesses’ testimoies by carrying out simultaneous questioning for elimination of differences (inconsistencies). For instance, a simultaneous questioning of Solomatina and Horashchenkov is yet to take place, even though Solomatina and her lawyer have reaffirmed their readiness for such questioning on multiple occasions.
NAPC was supposed to become the agency which directly protects whistleblowers’ rights. In reality, whistleblowers such as Solomatina, Dyvnych, Nikolayev and Petrenko now fight for their rights to investigation of proceedings based on illegal dismissal and other major violations of their labor rights in court.
Kateryna Ryzhenko, legal advisor at Transparency International Ukraine, Insider
