Press Release. On April 26, 2024, in Kyiv at the premises of the Ukrinform news agency NAKO held a press conference dedicated to the first year of work of the Anti-Corruption Council under the Ministry of Defense. The speakers and participants included Dmytro Klimenkov, Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine; Serhii Stepanyan, Acting Director of the Department of Detection and Prevention of Corruption of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine; members of the Public Anti-Corruption Council under the Ministry of Defense; Anatolii Yagin, head of the operational department of NAKO; and representatives of civil society and independent media.
Deputy Minister of Defense Dmytro Klimenkov said that the Public Anti-Corruption Council supervised the ministry's activities and gave professional advice during the year of work.
"When we conducted an audit, we saw that during the entire period of the Ministry's work, the Ministry of Education and Culture specialists determined how and what to procure, and they procured it. I find it wrong. Global practice and corporate standards indicate that purchases should be made by specialized professionals, people with relevant experience", Klimenkov noted.
Two agencies were created under the Ministry of Defense to optimize procurement. One of them is DOT, the State Operator of the Rear which procures food, clothing, fuel lubricants, and medicine. The other is AOZ, a defense procurement agency that deals with armaments. Thus, the Anti-Corruption Council influenced procurement of various categories of goods.
One of the achievements of the joint work of the Ministry of Defence and the Anti-Corruption Council is the transfer of procurement to the Prozorro platform. But there is still some space for abuse, says journalist Tetyana Nikolayenko, a member of the Anti-Corruption Council. After some trades the Ministry of Defense even carried out inspections of this initiative to find out why the military suddenly procured “pineapples, some strawberries or blueberries in the middle of winter.” According to Nikolayenko, errors in procurement of products do still happen. One example is when the military tried to procure 50 kg of basil at the price of 450 UAH/kg which is about 13 Euro/Kilo.
Since the formation of DOT, it has already concluded 180 contracts for over 40 billion UAH. Thanks to these efforts, the ministry has already saved UAH 8.5 billion. More than 30% of this amount has been saved due to more efficient procurement of fuel and lubricants. Head of the Anti-Corruption Council Yevhen Hrushovets notes that from the first day of its work the public council was determined to promote competition in procurement. Due to this the price has decreased, and the quality has increased.
"Three criminal proceedings have been already initiated regarding procurement in the Ministry: two of them have been initiated by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and one more by the State Bureau of Investigation," Hrushovets said.
One consequence of the launch of the Anti-Corruption Council is the improvement of the ministry's reputation in Ukrainian society and a more positive image of our state on the international arena, says Anatolii Yagin, NAKO Head of the Operations. NAKO as an independent NGO has promoted transparency and integrity in Ukraine's security and defense sector for many years.
"The case when a country improves its rating in the Government Defence Integrity Index by Transparency International during a full-scale war is unprecedented. This is precisely what happened in Ukraine in 2023 when Ukraine improved its rating by 3 points. Also, we at NAKO see that many reforms, particularly in the defense sector, are moving even faster in some places than during a full-scale war. Among such positive examples is a defense procurement reform or a corporatization reform of state defence enterprise Ukroboronprom, – Yagin added.
Currently, it remains to be decided when the Anti-Corruption Council will be reelected. By law, its term of office is one year. Currently, the Ministry is considering extending the term of office of the Council from one year to two:
"We at the Ministry of Defence see that one year is not enough for the work of such a council. Not all people are specialists in arms procurement. When they are elected to this council, people spend at least 2-3 months to build their capabilities in this area. If the council is elected for two years, the next composition of the council will be able to demonstrate better results," says Serhiy Stepanyan, Acting Director of the Department of Corruption Detection and Prevention of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
One of the reasons why the Anti-Corruption Council was created last year is the scandal about "eggs for 17 hryvnias" (in other words, about 50 cent per one egg). Three months after the publication of the scandalous article about the suspicious procurement of the Ministry of Defense, the Council members were elected by an independent online voting by Ukrainian citizens. Following that, 15 people launched monitoring of the Ministry procurement: these are journalists, volunteers, and representatives of public organizations.
The press conference was organized by NAKO and the Public Anti-Corruption Council under the Ministry of Defense with the support of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). We sincerely thank our partners for their cooperation.
