This January, the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on National Security, Defence and Intelligence plans to finalize a draft law that amends the Law of Ukraine "On State Secrets" (working title – the draft law on classified information). Along with other legislative changes, this will help reduce the unreasonable secrecy of defence procurement. Oleksandr Zavitnevych, the Head of the Committee, told about this in an interview with the news agency Army. Inform.

"Currently, everything about armament is under wraps" So let's approach this with an analysis: let's figure out what equipment is equated to armament, military, and special equipment, and what is not. Many things that do not belong to this category are put "into service" in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and therefore belong to the category of "armament". This approach completely destroys competition among suppliers, because year by year they work habitually with the same manufacturer, said Zavitnevych.

"We are approaching European standards: in order to classify something, it has to be justified. In most western countries, the tactical and technical characteristics of armament and military equipment are classified, but the lists of armament and military equipment and their prices are open," said Zavitnevych.

He predicts that up to 70% of defence procurement could be declassified. However, it will take time to adopt a lot of bylaws.

"In these conditions, the main thing is not to suspend procurement or, which may be even worse, not to block it. Therefore, we will take a balanced approach: we will move towards decreasing secrecy step by step, for transparency and competition and, accordingly, to improve the quality of products for military formations," promised the Head of the Parliamentary Committee.

We remind you that most of the data that is being classified is not related to national security. This violation of the balance of secrecy and transparency is one of the key reasons for possible corruption and abuse of powers. When experts, media, and often even MPs do not have access to a large part of the information, because almost everything is classified in this sector, then there is no way to check how certain costs were justified, and whether they really needed to be classified.

Interview available at the link.

Photo from the website Army.Inform