Odesa was among the top three in terms of the number of sentences handed down to corrupt officials since the beginning of the Great War.

In our region, there are 115, or 6.5%, more only in Lviv (172, or 9.8%) and Vinnytsia regions (151, or 8.6%), writes “Opendatabot”.

The number of records by region rather reflects the processes of stable court work than the real number and localization of corrupt individuals.

In total, since February 2022, Ukrainian courts have sentenced about 6,800 corrupt officials. For comparison: only in 2021, the Register of corrupt persons was replenished by approximately the same number of entries. The fact is that since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the submission of declarations for officials was voluntary, respectively, and was not controlled by the National Anti-Corruption Agency (NAAC).

Almost 1,800 corrupt officials have been convicted this year. About a third of the verdicts, 663 decisions, relate to the offer, promise or giving of an undue advantage to an official. A little less (623) — untimely submission of declarations. Compared to last year, the number of such violations increased 34 times. NAZK notes that data on untimely submission of declarations began to arrive only in April 2024, when three declaration campaigns ended at once. These are tens of thousands of applications, and now not all of them have been processed. This figure is likely to increase in the coming years and equal the figures before a full-scale invasion.

It is interesting that in 98% of cases criminals were sentenced to a fine – that’s 1,714 sentences. Only 1.5% of convicts received real terms — that’s 27 sentences.

Since the beginning of 2024, NAZK has found almost a quarter of a billion dubious fortunes in Odesa officials and deputies.

As Serhii Gupyak, deputy head of the NAKC, who visited our region, told at the briefing, in 2024, the agency initiated 68 full inspections in the region, 44 of them have already been completed.

“Half of the 44 completed inspections yielded results,” said Serhii Gupiak. — Unreliable data for 243 million hryvnias was established. Four declarations showed unconfirmed assets of almost 16 million hryvnias. The subject composition is quite different, but the most are deputies of local councils, followed by the customs and tax spheres, the migration service and one example each from other spheres.”

At the same time, Serhii Gupiak emphasized that the agency has the ability to check only official assets.

“Currently, there is an opinion that it is the national agency that is obliged to reveal all property, cash, cryptocurrency and other assets of the subjects of the declaration,” noted Serhii Gupiak. — In fact, NAZK is noticeably limited in its capabilities. We see that a person has bank accounts, crypto wallets, etc., if all this partially or completely does not correspond to the declaration – this is called non-compliance. But, using the example of the same Khmelnytskyi MSEK, the agency does not have the authority to go to the same Krupa’s home and check what is in her bedside table. It’s up to the law enforcement agencies.”

It should be noted that there are 700,000 so-called declarants in total in Ukraine according to the NAZK. In 2024, the agency launched 860 full inspections. Of these, 255 inspections yielded results of non-compliance in the amount of 2.9 billion hryvnias.

We will remind that from the beginning of the full-scale war until the fall of 2023, the declarations of officials were not checked. Officials had to submit data for 2021 and 2022 by the beginning of 2023, and for the previous year – by April 2024.

(C)DUMSKAYA.NET 2024