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On September 16, amendments to the Procedure for Conducting Full Verification of Declarations came into force. What are these changes — we explain below.
The Procedure was last updated in early 2021. Therefore, the need for change is long overdue due to several problems that the National Agency faced in practice during the full verification of declarations. Eliminating these problems for more effective work of the NACP is important, since it is during a full check that signs of corruption crimes such as illicit enrichment or unfounded assets can be detected.
Thus, the main changes in the Procedure for conducting a full check of declarations are the following:
- The assets purchased with funds received before the public service will also be checked.
The NACP will now verify the accuracy of the valuation not only regarding assets owned or disposed of by public officials and acquired with funds received during the public service, but also regarding assets acquired with previously received funds. This refers to the time when officials were already subject to the requirements for filing declarations and restrictions on receiving gifts, which are provided for by the Law “On Prevention of Corruption.”
The motivation here is the need to check the legitimacy of the sources of funds for the acquisition of assets, regardless of how much time the person was in a particular position. Situations may occur when the declarant received revenues before the public service or in between.
However, the innovation applies only to officials who perform the functions of the state or local self-government and those equated with them. That is, persons who are not officials and who perform work or provide services in accordance with the contract with the enterprise, institution, organization, as well as candidates for the President of Ukraine and candidates for MPs of Ukraine, are not affected by the changes.
- Copies of the documents may be requested from the declarants.
This is necessary to confirm the accuracy of the information specified in the declaration regarding assets located outside Ukraine, as well as other assets, if the NACP does not have information about them. Declarants may also submit written explanations for such assets.
Here, it is important to ensure the rights of the declarants: that the new obligation does not become too burdensome for them, as well as to regulate the issue of bringing the declarants to administrative liability if they do not provide the requested documents.
- New grounds for extending the term were added: the transfer of the authorized person to another position (which does not provide for full verification), as well as the exclusion of the powers to conduct full verifications of declarations from the official duties of the authorized person.
It is worth emphasizing that such changes may be a reason for pressure on authorized persons due to the exclusion of the powers to conduct full verifications from their duties. This cannot be allowed to happen.
- It is possible now to suspend the period for issuing a certificate on the results of the verification for up to 14 calendar days in the event of temporary incapacity for work of the authorized person of the NACP or their business trip.
In addition, the course of action is regulated, in case the authorized person made a typo or an arithmetical error in the certificate.
- Electronic accounting of full declaration checks will be introduced.
From now on, the NACP will carry out the accounting of the full verifications and their results in electronic form in the electronic document management system, and not in the register.
The main changes to the Procedure for conducting a full check of the declaration are for the most part sensible, but some issues still need to be worked on. In particular, the NACP should ensure that the rights of the declarants are adequately protected during the collection of information and prevent possible pressure on the Agency’s authorized persons.
TI Ukraine will monitor how the updated Procedure works in practice. The organization expects that the declaration checks will become more effective and hopes that this will allow the NACP to cope with the future workload after restoring the obligation to file declarations.
Let us remind you that the NACP has started public discussions of the State Anti-Corruption Program for 2023-2025.