Only 37% of all the assignments have been fulfilled by the Kyiv City Major Anti-corruption Council (the AC) during two years. Experts of the RPR-Kyiv Group, representative office of a global anti-corruption organisation Transparency International in Ukraine and other civic activists emphasize that the Council’s work was suspended on purpose: no sessions were held since January 2017.

The civic society offers to reduce the number of body’s members and to introduce two Co-chairmen from the authorities and the society as well as members’ automatic expulsion in case of a failure to fulfil assignments or attend sessions.

According to the civic society report, the Anti-corruption Council has shown insignificant result during its two-year work. Only 29 assignments (37%) of the city authorities out of 78 were fully accomplished, 28 (36%) were not accomplished and the rest were only partially accomplished. In 2017 the rules of procedure of the advisory body have been neglected. In compliance with the rules of procedure, sessions should be held not less than once a month; nevertheless, no sessions were held since January. Meanwhile the Anti-corruption Council is an ongoing body on consultancy and advisory, and is headed by Vitalii Klychko. The core mission of the Council is carrying out a systematic analysis of conditions on preventing and combatting corruption within the city authorities.

Public officers of Kyiv City State Administration (the KCSA) sabotage the implementation of important anti-corruption decisions of the city authorities which undermines all the previous work done by the civic sector in order to approve those decisions. “The elaboration and approval of the Frame Program on Regulatory Reforms and Implementation of Means for Prevention of Corruption in Kyiv by the Kyiv Council on December 8th 2016 appeared to be one of the highest accomplishments of the Anti-corruption Council, and an example of efficient cooperation between the civic society and the representatives of the KCSA. Anyway nothing has changed since December and the program itself has in fact been ignored. Terms of fulfilment of some arrangements have been missed,Oksana Velychko, a member of the Anti-corruption Council and a Manager of the RPR-Kyiv Group, mentioned. “The availability of such a mechanism as the Anti-corruption Council is an affirmation of the political will to eradicate the corruption system. Transformation is necessary in order to implement new formats and standards of responsible policy, independent government and efficient partnership. There is only one question left: whether the Anti-corruption Council is just an imitation of some activity or will it ever become a faith for result, a will and capability for transformations in Kyiv,” said Olesia Arkhypska, a member of the Anti-corruption Council and an Expert on Governance at Transparency International-Ukraine.

Kyiv became the first city in Ukraine to have heads of the public services enterprises being elected through an open competition. The procedure was in fact elaborated by the civil part of the Anti-corruption Council. As of June the 6th, only 5 competition committees have started their activity while the society had chosen the candidates for 11 committees. Such public services enterprises as “Kyivreklama” and “Kyivtransparkservice” have been working without any management for more than six months.

It is a paradox of personnel policy when city authorities carry out a transparent, competitive and non-bogus competition for the position of a head of a public services enterprise, and simultaneously turn the tables so that no head having won the competition was appointed. Such an outcome undermines one’s faith into the municipality’s sincere intentions to carry out a transparent personnel policy,” Mykhailo Serebriakov, a member of the Anti-corruption Council and an Expert of the RPR-Kyiv Group, mentioned.

The experts have acknowledged minimum progress in eliminating the corruption risks in the sphere of outdoor advertising: the Directory on Advertising of the KCSA does not work; samples of orders and decrees have not been approved so far. We have to admit that city authorities prefer an option of demonstrative ‘restoration of order’ in advertising.

The requirements of the permissive law are violated heavily, a fee charged for placing an advertisement is still paid to a bank account of a municipal service enterprise, and ‘publicity and transparency’ of information about advertisements is of a declamatory, measured-out character,’ mentioned Oleksandr Pliva, a member of the Anti-corruption Council and Leading Expert of the RPR-Kyiv Group.

The experts offer a new mechanism for the Kyiv City Major Anti-corruption Council’s work, as well as the following amendments to the procedures:

  • implementation of governance of the AC by two co-chairmen represented by both the civic society and the KCSA, and both having equal power and authority. A co-chairman from the society shall be elected during the first session of the newly established AC;
  • selection of an equal number of representatives from the civic society and the KCSA, but not more than 9 persons from each party (currently, the total number is 34 persons, 11 of which are the representatives of the KCSA, 5 people’s deputies of Kyiv Rada and 18 representatives of the civic society). The members from the society shall be selected on a competition basis having international organisations in Ukraine involved;
  • a co-chairman’s failure to fulfil the assignments of the City Major, based on the recommendations of the AC, shall be subject to deprivation of his power;
  • all the sessions of the AC shall be open for any propositions from the representatives of the KCSA, people’s deputies, civic society and entrepreneurs, as well as for their participation in any session;
  • an agenda on each session shall be published on the web-site of the AC and the KCSA;
  • non-attendance of three sessions without any reasonable excuse shall lead to an automatic exclusion from the membership in the AC.