Remarks by the Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk at a session of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine of October 6, 2014

Yatsenyuk A.P.: Good day, dear colleagues!

The Government has appealed to the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, so tomorrow there will be summoned an extraordinary session of the Ukrainian Parliament.

Together with the President, we discussed an issue of voting for a package of laws to combat corruption. The Government has its clear plan of how to curb corruption in Ukraine and what steps to make.

First and foremost, this plan consists of three blocks.

The first is deregulation, and we have already adopted in the Cabinet of Ministers a number of decisions on deregulation.

What is the background for corruption? If officials have too much powers and they aren’t overseen, they just start to collect money for their powers, the state authorized them with. That is why the Government has taken several key decisions regarding deregulation, and, respectively, reduction of corruption in public authorities.

The first solution is to reduce the number of public authorities that exercise control. We have cut 56 to now being 27.

The second is to reduce the number of functions. There were 1100 functions, at this stage there remained 680.

Third is to improve the process of inspection. Two months ago, the Government on receiving approval by the Parliament adopted a decision prohibiting to carry out inspections of business entities by the end of the year. With exception of the State Fiscal Service, which didn’t come under this law.

These are first three blocks that relate to curbing corruption through deregulation, through reduction of the powers of officials and through shortening of functions.

Now there is the second block, the Government insists on. We are to submit to the Parliament and appeal to the Parliament [with a request – ed.] tomorrow to vote on two bills that are presented by the Cabinet of Ministers and are called to significantly prevent the situation when corrupt officials are at power, to reveal them.

The first law is called the Law on the determination of final profit recipients being legal entities and public figures.

What is the essence of this law? In case the law is passed, any business entities (companies, joint stock company, limited liability company), any company will be required to disclose information about real owners of the company. Today, companies are registered in the offshore, and the actual owners of the companies can appear either civil servants, members of the Government or employees of the Administration of the President, and it is impossible to see.

Therefore, the primary task of this law is to disclose data about all beneficial owners of any Ukrainian company.

And second novelty of this law is after approval of this law, any Ukrainian citizen will receive access to the information on the owners of all immovable property in Ukraine. We’ll see who has what houses, flats, property and get real access to all databases of all properties in the country.

Therefore, it is the law that has to be endorsed. I hope that members of the Parliament have nothing to fear about disclosing information about owners of the companies and disclosure of information about real estate and other property, which is in possession of each individual in Ukraine.

The second law, and I would call it an anti-corruption code, is titled "On the prevention of corruption". I want to acknowledge separately the activity of the Ministry of Justice, as this anti-corruption code was being designed with western experts. There was very active participation of our partners from the United States. We were engaged into finalizing it for several times and now, after receiving the Government’s decision, the final redaction will be sent for consideration to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

What is the purpose of this bill? First of all, the Law "On combating corruption" should focus not on petty officials, but officials of I-III categories. It means starting with the members of the Government, the Administration of the President, Ministers, and ending with CEA leaders, heads of local administrations.

Second, what this law stipulates for. It will envisage introduction of mandatory electronic declaration for each government official of I-III categories, that is, e-Declaration of incomes and expenses of each official. Therefore, anyone can get access to this electronic Declaration.

Meanwhile, the general list is enlarged, of what is declared, including jewels and metals, and foreign currency, and cash will be declared – the information not contained in the current Declaration form.

Third, what is introduced for senior officials, is the procedure of monitoring the life of such a civil servant. A special national commission will be authorized on the verification of declarations of high-ranking officials to obtain information from other sources, whether what is written in the Declaration corresponds to the lifestyle of one or another high official they lead in high offices.

While elaboration of this bill we studied the advanced experience, and this law, like the Law on the disclosure of information related to owners and real estate, should be a substantive step in real battle against corruption. Transparency and access to information, reports, verification of reports, also our anti-corruption code contains considerably higher responsibility for acts of corruption. This is the second block.

Third, tomorrow the President is to present the bill On the establishment of National Anti-Corruption Bureau, and we hope that the entire package of laws on combating corruption - two Government's bills and one bill of the President -will be backed by the Parliament. This is also the test for parliamentarians for the upcoming elections: whether they are ready in words or by deeds vote to support decisions on real steps to make to curb corruption in Ukraine.