You're reading: Authorities re-launch efforts to make officials’ asset declarations secret

Over the past week, Ukrainian officials and politicians have re-launched efforts to make electronic asset declarations secret.

Critics see the efforts as an attempt by officials to hide ill-gotten wealth, which is denied by the authorities.

Lawmakers from President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc, the People’s Front and the Radical Party on Oct. 1 submitted a bill on e-declarations to parliament. The bill was sent to the anti-corruption committee on Oct. 2.

Under the bill, undercover employees of law enforcement agencies would file secret paper declarations under the procedure set by the agencies themselves.

The bill also stipulates that employees of law enforcement agencies whose jobs constitute a “state secret” would file declarations in such a way that would make it impossible to identify their links to the agencies.

The agencies include the Foreign Intelligence Service, the Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate, the National Police, the State Investigation Bureau, the Security Service of Ukraine, the State Border Guard, the State Security Directorate, the State Fiscal Service, the State Bailiff Service and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine.

The Anti-Corruption Action Center said on Oct. 4 that the bill provides loopholes for effectively making the declarations of any employees of these agencies secret. Moreover, such declarations will be checked by the agencies themselves, as opposed to the National Agency for Preventing Corruption, or NAPC.

Anton Gerashchenko, a sponsor of the bill and a lawmaker from the People’s Front party, told the Kyiv Post on Oct. 7 that the legislation would apply only to intelligence officers, not to any law enforcement employees. He lashed out at the Anti-Corruption Action Center, calling them “liars and provocateurs.”

The bill was submitted on the same day as the Bihus.info investigative journalism project released an investigation into the expensive real estate of Serhiy Semochko, first deputy chief of the Foreign Intelligence Service, and his family’s links to Russia. The Foreign Intelligence Service is listed as the first among the agencies to which the legislation applies.

Meanwhile, Supreme Court Justice Alla Lesko on Oct.5 also proposed making the asset declarations of judges secret, claiming that asset disclosure makes it easy for robbers to identify victims.

Lesko had previously triggered a controversy by competing for a Supreme Court job while remaining a member of the High Council of Justice, which appoints Supreme Court judges. She denied the accusations of having a conflict of interest.

She has also been accused of having links to pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk, which Lesko denies.

The Anti-Corruption Action Center said the new legislation on e-declarations would effectively legitimize the actions of the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, and spread this practice to other agencies.

The SBU has made the declarations of almost all of its employees secret to the public, citing national security concerns.

Meanwhile, in 2017 the declarations of more than 200 prosecutors and judges disappeared from the declaration register. The NAPC claimed that the measure was necessary to protect them as officials prosecuting and trying criminal cases.

The NAPC, which is responsible for checking e-declarations, has so far failed to punish any top officials for violations in their asset declarations.

Hanna Solomatina and Oksana Divnich, ex-top NAPC officials, said in November that the agency was involved in large-scale corruption and was completely controlled by the Presidential Administration. The NAPC and the Presidential Administration denied the accusations.