Ukrainians believe corruption can not be overcome, and authorities need to show more specific cases of overcoming corruption and punishing those responsible, Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, the Chief Executive Officer of Transparency International Ukraine has said.
“We need more examples of defeated corruption, even the future of the current government depends on whether they can present the facts of overcoming and punishing corruption to society. If there is an opinion in society that corruption is invincible, then people will more easily succumb to corruption,” Yurchyshyn said in Kyiv on Sept. 14 at a briefing dedicated to the festival “Cinema against Corruption.”
He also said that the number of Ukrainians who do not believe in the possibility of overcoming corruption in the country has increased.
“Today, corrupt officials are not punished, except for petty officials. And the number of people who do not believe that corruption as a whole can be punished has increased. If in 2013, 80 percent of Ukrainians believed that the government could not defeat corruption, then for today this number increased to 86 percent. This is the number of people who do not see the results of the fight against such a phenomenon, although there are much more achievements in this sphere,” Yurchyshyn said.
The representative of the organization also said that 38 percent of Ukrainians directly faced corruption, that is, they were required to pay a bribe or they had to pay bribes.
“Media forms an opinion, so it’s important to show the facts of punished major corruption acts. Even former President Yanukovych is being tried today in the case of state treason, not corruption,” he said.
The festival “Cinema against corruption” started in Kyiv on Sept. 14. Within the framework of the festival, screening of investigative films from Ukrainian journalists will take place. The program also included six European films exploring the nature of corruption. All the displays are free. Except for Kyiv, they will also be demonstrated in Kryvy Rih, Poltava, Severodonetsk, Zhytomyr and Zaporozhia.
“Corruption exists not only in Ukraine, but all over the world. The festival includes different formats and video screening in different regions, so we expect different discussions, discussion of the challenges that corruption poses to society,” Goethe-Institut representative in Ukraine Katharina Gorig said.
