Justice Minister at odds with acting prime minister over anti-corruption drive (07/13/97)

Justice Minister at odds with acting prime minister over anti-corruption drive

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukraine's Minister of Justice Serhii Holovatyi on July 8 accused factions within the Cabinet of Ministers of attempting to sabotage his anti-corruption effort. He also made public a feud between himself and Acting Prime Minister Vasyl Durdynets, who had publicly chastised the justice minister at a Cabinet of Ministers meeting over the pace of reforms.

"The battle against corruption has hit a critical point. Inaction by government leaders tells me that there is no desire to see the program implemented," Mr. Holovatyi told reporters.

He said he could not state specifically who was derailing the process. "I am not able to give you specifics because of the position I hold," said Mr. Holovatyi, but declared that after a meeting he has requested with President Leonid Kuchma he may be more forthcoming.

Mr. Holovatyi is the father of the "Clean Hands" anti-corruption program, which he conceived and then developed after President Kuchma expressed support for it. The program foresees a step-by-step implementation of programs to ferret out the corrupt elements in government and to reorganize various sectors of government to make them more accountable for their actions and less susceptible to criminal activity.

Minister Holovatyi said many government ministries have moved slowly to meet target dates for reviewing worker performances and implementing guidelines that were developed in the anti-corruption campaign launched by President Kuchma on April 10. Of the 21 targets that were to have been met by July 1, seven have not.

"Government funds are not being allocated, officials in the executive branch are providing only superficial responses to our inquiries, and the implementation of many measures has been delayed," explained the justice minister.

Mr. Holovatyi said he has been stymied in his efforts almost from day one.

Drafts of the document had been disseminated to the various Cabinet ministries for review and feedback in the spring after President Kuchma had given an initial okay to the program and had praised the work of the Ministry of Justice - only to be extensively marked up by government officials. "The changes were not proposed to strengthen and embellish the program, but to weaken the document," said Mr. Holovatyi.

He said he went to Vasyl Durdynets, head of the Committee on the Fight against Corruption and Organized Crime, and currently acting prime minister, who supported only the reinstatement of some of the requirements that had been cut. The document was left intact only after President Kuchma intervened.

So Mr. Holovatyi was quite taken aback, he explained, when on July 5 the acting prime minister responded to his report on the problems in the anti-corruption effort by attacking him for failing to forcefully implement the anti-corruption campaign. At the meeting Mr. Durdynets said the plan that Mr. Holovatyi was pursuing "had essentially been remade, both in its structure and its content," and that Mr. Holovatyi "should be more critical in the assessment of his activities," reported Interfax-Ukraine.

Mr. Holovatyi emphasized at the July 8 press conference that the Ministry of Justice is not responsible for implementing anti-corruption policies. "That is what law-enforcement bodies do," he said

He explained that Mr. Durdynets had been critical of his work since the initial program had begun and especially after a press conference on April 11 in which the justice minister had blamed organs of the Cabinet of Ministers for resisting the fight against corruption.

"Mr. Durdynets called me that evening and said 'any more of that and I will smear you against the wall.'"

Acting Prime Minister Durdynets could not be reached for comment.

The pressure on the Ministry of Justice has continued, said Mr. Holovatyi, most recently with a audit by the State Control and Revision Department critical of purchases. "They blamed us for buying a book for $300 without obtaining some kind of permission. My God, we bought a book, not a $100,000 Mercedes," explained Mr. Holovatyi. "This is merely revenge from the Cabinet apparat who did not believe that we would follow through with the anti-corruption campaign."

The justice minister also announced that a proposal has been submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers for a national congress on a long-term anti-corruption program to be held in September, which Mr. Holovatyi said the World Bank has said it would endorse, and for which it would offer organizational and technical services.

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