The Accounting Chamber with Half Its Seats Empty: Will Ukraine Manage to Meet the New IMF Benchmark?

At the end of February, the International Monetary Fund approved a new four-year program for Ukraine. Among the updated structural benchmarks that Ukraine is expected to meet in 2026, one requirement appeared for the first time: to appoint members of the Accounting Chamber to all vacant positions by the end of the year.

Why did the IMF include this point? Because the Accounting Chamber is Ukraine’s supreme audit institution. It oversees the use of budget funds and international financial assistance, as well as the effectiveness of government programs. For Ukraine’s international partners, this is critical: the country is receiving substantial financial support, and independent auditing of expenditures is a key condition for trust.

Yet for almost two years, the Accounting Chamber has been operating with limited capacity, with more than half of its positions vacant—6 out of 11. The situation was supposed to be fixed through a competition launched after the adoption of the new law reforming the institution in December 2024. The updated selection procedure provides for the creation of a special commission—the Advisory Group of Experts (AGE)—with international experts holding the decisive vote in the selection of candidates for appointment to the Accounting Chamber.

However, since June 2025, the Verkhovna Rada failed to vote to establish the AGE. In addition to three international experts, it must include three representatives nominated by parliamentary factions or groups. As a result, parliament has effectively blocked the competition.

The requirement to appoint the missing members of the Accounting Chamber may give parliament an additional push both to establish the AGE and to appoint the candidates it selects. Compliance with structural benchmarks affects future IMF program reviews and the disbursement of further financing tranches. In other words, this is not just an administrative requirement—it could directly affect Ukraine’s continued financing from international partners.

That said, timely compliance with this benchmark may be at risk.

The memorandum states that Ukraine intends to establish the Advisory Group of Experts by the end of April 2026. However, this plan may be complicated by the fact that candidates for the international expert positions in the AGE were submitted almost a year ago, and with the passage of time, their willingness to serve may now be in doubt. If some of them withdraw, a new nomination process could delay the launch of the competition.

Second, the selection of candidates is a lengthy procedure covering several stages:

–       publication of the competition announcement and submission of application documents (at least 30 days)

–       the competitive selection itself, including approval of the procedure, methodology, and selection criteria, testing and interviews, special vetting of candidates, and the formation of the list of recommended candidates (up to 9 months)

–       submission by the Budget Committee of the list of candidates for parliamentary consideration (up to 10 days), followed by a vote, for which no deadline has been set.

So even if the AGE is established without delay, the process of selecting and appointing candidates to the Accounting Chamber could still take more than 10 months, and even longer if delays arise at individual stages.

In addition, one should not discount parliament’s low legislative activity in recent months, as well as the need to reach a compromise among parliamentary factions—both on appointing the experts and later on appointing the members of the Accounting Chamber.

But Ukraine does not have that much time: the structural benchmark on appointing members of the institution must be met by the end of this year.

Therefore, to avoid the negative consequences of failing to meet one of the IMF’s requirements, parliament needs to find a compromise and bring the issue of establishing the Advisory Group of Experts to the floor as soon as possible, to unblock the Accounting Chamber competition.

This material was made possible with the support of the MATRA program of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Ukraine. Responsibility for the content lies with the author and does not necessarily reflect the official position of the Embassy.