91.7% of Ukrainians are in favor of open declarations of the “wartime” income of officials. The authorities are against it

More than half a year ago, 25,000 Ukrainians signed a petition to Volodymyr Zelenskyi to restore the declaration of officials. The president supported the petition.

During this time, the submission of declarations managed to become one of the key requirements for receiving the next IMF tranche. And EU Ambassador Matti Maasikas warned Ukrainian officials that the resumption of declaration is “a good test of true commitment to the cause.”

However, such statements do not inspire optimism in the Verkhovna Rada. Against the background of investigations into the Pechersk (a central luxurious area in Kyiv) estate of Servant of the People member Halimon, suspicions of a multi-thousand bribe to European Solidarity member Aleksieiev, and the machinations of their colleague Marchenko on the Shlyah system (this system allows men of 18–60 y.o. to legally travel abroad), it is clear why.

From 2022, 80% of Ukrainians have become impoverished. But it does not seem that the people’s deputies tightened their belts and saved money. In his new investigation, journalist Danylo Mokryk emphasizes that there is every reason to believe that people’s deputies have taken out of pockets so-called black cash and are intensively buying up real estate abroad.

Most likely, this pace is related to the new draft law on the restoration of declaring property, which was created by the authorities to fulfill the requirements of the IMF. Still, in the sophisticated wording, the people’s deputies, as always, hid loopholes that would actually allow to hide the property gained during the war.

For instance, the new draft law will allow:

• to not indicate the property that an official uses for free, for example, an apartment registered “for their mother”, purchased during the war;
• to not indicate the residence addresses of family members abroad (only the country and city). As a result, luxury apartments in the centers of European capitals can be hidden;
• to not indicate one’s own address of residence in Ukraine. It will be easier to hide an apartment in central Pechersk district;
• to avoid submitting declarations for those who are in any way involved “in the defense of the state”. It is obvious that the soldiers of the Armed Forces should definitely not be distracted by declaring their property. However, currently the wording of the draft law will allow to not submit declarations even to those who never held weapons in their hands.

While the draft law is not registered in the parliament, we hope that at least numbers will be able to sober up the people’s deputies.

According to the results of a sociological survey conducted by the Razumkov Center on the order of ZN.UA, it is clear that citizens understand the need to resume declaring property, despite the war.

For example, 90.9% of Ukrainians believe that it is necessary to restore the public declaration of wealth by civil servants. Only 1.8% of respondents doubt it. Only 7% were uncertain with the answer.

The point of declaring the wealth acquired by officials during the full-scale war has received even higher support among respondents. 91.7% of Ukrainians are in favor of people’s deputies and officials publicly reporting on their “wartime” income and acquisitions.

The attitude of Ukrainians to the return to free access to officials’ declarations is also eloquent. 88% of respondents answered “yes” to the question of whether the state should restore public access to pre-war declarations of civil servants. Only 2% consider it inappropriate. Another 10% of Ukrainians hesitate.

Therefore, it is necessary to discuss opening public access to the Register of Declarations right now. Although people’s deputies manage to manipulate this abroad, citizens have decided: it is necessary, finally, to report publicly.

It is obvious that public access to some data, such as the names of minor children of politicians and officials, can indeed be limited. However, any such “hiding places” should not affect the main thing – the identification of persons who have been cynically profiting during the war.

If in the matter of opening the register, the main interest of officials would really be data security, it is unlikely that we would find ourselves in a situation where journalists discover new estates and expensive cars of officials almost every week.

In short, we have the following. It is obvious that under the guise of restoring the declaration, the deputies will once again try to kill its essence. They will once again go against the interests of society and the country.

This was the case when the declaration was launched in 2015. In the same way, the deputies tried to push through harmful amendments in 2020, when the declaration had to be saved after the decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

However, both then and now, society is definitely not ready to ignore the problem.

This is the civil position of the majority. The government cannot continue to take no notice of it. And we at the Anti-Corruption Action Center will not allow the authorities, under the pretext of war, to destroy everything that, despite the reluctance of politicians, was achieved in the last ten years.

All the data mentioned in the text are the results of a sociological survey by the Razumkov Center. The survey commissioned by ZN.UA was conducted from June 23 to 28, 2023 by the face-to-face method in 22 regions of Ukraine and the city of Kyiv. 2018 respondents over the age of 18 were surveyed. The theoretical sampling error does not exceed 2.3%.

Read this article in russian and Ukrainian.