The Cabinet of Ministers and the Verkhovna Rada are disrupting the reform of the Bureau of Economic Security at the behest of the head of the President’s Office, Andriy Yermak. This was reported by the Anti-Corruption Center.
The Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, headed by People’s Deputy Danylo Hetmantsev, considered in the second reading the draft law on the reform of the BEB No. 10439.
The final text does not take into account the norms and amendments that ensure the independence of the composition of the attestation and personnel commissions, reports the Central Committee.
From the meeting of the financial committee, it became known that this version of the project was supported by First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyridenko, who is responsible for negotiations with international partners regarding the reform. She took part in yesterday’s meeting with the ambassadors of the “Big Seven” countries.
Hetmantsev stated that no unequivocal decision was reached at that meeting. This means that the international partners did not agree with the proposed approach, the Anti-Corruption Center claims.
The CPC also reports that Yermak participated in the relevant negotiations. He gave instructions to support the text, which was not agreed by the partners and which excludes independent experts from the processes of attestation and selection of personnel.
Reform of the BEB, including a cleanup of the body, is a requirement of funding programs from the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the United States of America.
“It is the independent composition of the attestation commissions that is the guarantee of cleaning the BEB and can ensure the possibility of firing unscrupulous employees. By refusing to include independent experts from partners in the attestation commissions, the government and parliament actually ignored the demands of the partners and put the entire attestation procedure at risk.” – said Olena Shcherban, deputy executive director of the Anti-Corruption Center.
The version of the draft law approved by the specialized committee also does not provide for the inclusion of experts from international partners in the personnel commissions that have to select new employees of the BEB.
“The text of the draft law also leaves the possibility for the competition commission for the election of the director of the BEB to choose two winners of the competition instead of one. The latter creates prerequisites for political negotiations with the winners before the appointment.”, – writes the Central Committee.
The Bureau of Economic Security is a law enforcement agency created to protect the economic security of the state. The Verkhovna Rada adopted the law on BEB in January 2021, and the Cabinet of Ministers established the bureau in May of the same year. BEB started functioning in November 2021. In April, the parliament adopted draft law No. 10439 in the first reading.
