April 8, 2016

April 16, 2015

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Last year, on April 16, 2015, Ukraine established the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, headed by 35-year-old Artem Sytnyk, a former investigator for the Kyiv Oblast prosecutor’s office.

Mr. Sytnyk was named as head of the bureau after months of delay, though President Petro Poroshenko had promised its launch in January 2015.

The youth and limited experience of Mr. Sytnyk was unsettling for parliamentarians. Mustafa Nayyem of the Poroshenko Bloc said, “Mr. Sytnyk can go down in history as the first fighter against corruption, who was able to put behind bars top-tier officials, from ministers to judges, prosecutors, etc. Or he can become yet another inglorious official from the dark masses.”

Independent National Deputy Vitalii Kuprii, formerly of the Poroshenko Bloc, said the president’s selection would prove that Mr. Sytnyk could be “easily manipulated.”

Serhiy Leshchenko (of the Poroshenko Bloc) said Mr. Sytnyk’s inexperience was an advantage, and could result in political independence, as it did for Latvian Anti-Coruption Bureau head Aleksejs Loskutovs.

The bureau, which was to function independently of government interference, was  authorized to seize funds that were determined to have been illegally obtained. Mr. Sytnyk reports on progress to the Verkhovna Rada, the Cabinet of Ministers and the president, who retains the authority to dismiss him, along with Parliament, but only based on an international audit. Mr. Sytnyk holds the position for seven years, longer than any elected official, and is salaried at $60,000 hrv per month (approximately $2,600), which is far higher than any elected official – including the president’s, whose monthly salary is 9,296 hrv (approximately $400).

The bureau has an estimated 700 employees, and coordinates its activities with other law enforcement authorities, including those abroad. For 2015, the bureau had a budget of 300 million hrv ($13 million).

Mr. Sytnyk, in an independent move, said that he would start his work with Ukraine’s notoriously corrupt judiciary, “starting with the higher judges [and proceeding] to the lower ones.” He also said that the bureau’s priority included “officials at the highest echelons of power,” adding, corruption “is about as high in all bodies.”

The bureau was expected to be fully functioning within six months, said Oleksandr Danyliuk, President Poroshenko’s representative to the Cabinet of Ministers. Mr. Danyliuk said that Ukraine would coordinate efforts with the United States and Europe to fill positions within the bureau, including IT experts to facilitate the exchange of information between government bodies.

Seventy of the first 700 investigators of the bureau began work on October 1, 2015, with training provided by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the European Union. Two weeks after being appointed, Mr. Sytnyk selected Gizo Uglava, former deputy prosecutor general of Georgia, as deputy chief of the bureau.

Source: “Anti-Corruption Bureau launched with young investigator in charge,” by Zenon Zawada, The Ukrainian Weekly, April 26, 2015.

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