January 19, 2018

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…From the Revolution of Dignity came a call for government to stamp out corruption. Once elected, officials, led by President [Petro] Poroshenko and former Prime Minister [Arseniy] Yatsenyuk, courageously established independent, corruption-fighting institutions, including the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP) and the National Agency for Preventing Corruption (NAPC). Landmark reform required public asset declarations by public officials. ProZorro, the new electronic procurement system, increased transparency and reduced graft. …

And yet, four years after the Maidan, the question lingers:  is the courage to move Ukraine forward faltering? Political attacks on NABU and SAP have hampered their ability to dismantle networks of public sector corruption. Like the Ukrainian people, we remain deeply concerned that, despite over 100 major corruption cases sent to the courts by NABU and SAP, not a single significant judgment has been handed down. As long as corrupt judges can defer justice indefinitely, establishing an Anti-Corruption Court is imperative. Moreover, the public servant asset declaration rules adopted last year have been turned against the very activists who are fighting high-level corruption.   Those who expose corruption are heroes, yet they are targeted by elements of Old Ukraine.

…Ukrainians frequently rank corruption as the key issue preventing progress. Overwhelming majorities believe politicians pursue their private interests over the public good. Ukraine’s security and sovereignty depend not just on defeating foreign aggression, but on the internal struggle to defeat corruption, without which no country can develop institutions resistant both to foreign meddling and domestic manipulation. …

– U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, in an op-ed titled “Courage to Move Forward,” posted on January 3 on the website of the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine (For the full text see https://ua.usembassy.gov/op-ed-ambassador-marie-yovanovitch-courage-move-forward/).

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