281 MSEC decisions on officials have already been canceled and inspections are still ongoing
19 February 14:56
As of February 17, 2,636 cases of officials in which decisions were made by medical and social expert commissions (MSECs) were included in the list of cases to be reviewed and assessed for the validity of the decisions made. The Ministry of Health has released the interim results of the inspections, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
According to the Minister of Health of Ukraine Viktor Lyashko, experts have already processed 1359 cases of officials: 281 MSEC decisions have been canceled, in 232 cases the disability group or the term of the decision has been changed, and almost 500 people have been summoned for examination.
According to the official, the list of people whose cases are subject to review is constantly growing as additional data is received from law enforcement officials.
“Our goal is to ensure that only those who really need it receive support. This is not only a matter of law, but also of social justice,” the Minister emphasized.
Officials of which agencies were inspected
According to the SBU, the SBI and the Prosecutor General’s Office, the list of 2636 cases includes officials from more than 70 government agencies. Among them, 31% (816 people) are employees of the State Customs Service, 20% (518 people) are employees of the State Tax Service of Ukraine, and 17% (448 people) are employees of prosecutor’s offices and others.
Based on the results of the inspections, the MSEC decisions were canceled in 281 cases: 73 of the reversed decisions concerned officials of the State Customs Service, 67 – the State Tax Service of Ukraine, and 50 – prosecutors.
In addition, new decisions were made in 232 cases (160 people had their disability group changed and 72 people had their validity period changed).
Currently, another 466 officials have been summoned for examination to make a decision.
What punishment awaits violators
Experts who assess the validity of the MSEC’s decisions inform law enforcement agencies and the Ministry of Health about the results of the inspections.
According to law enforcement officials, two prosecutors and two officials of the MSEC have already been served with the first suspicions. Prosecutors of the General Inspectorate of the Prosecutor General’s Office, in the course of investigating criminal proceedings regarding the facts of unlawful receipt of disability groups by prosecutors of various levels, served two prosecutors with fraud suspicion (part 4 and part 5 of Article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). Also, two officials of medical and social expert commissions were notified of suspicion of forgery (part 1 of Article 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
The Ministry of Health draws attention to the fact that law enforcement agencies continue to receive new resolutions within the framework of criminal proceedings containing a list of officials of the relevant state bodies who are persons with disabilities.
At the end of October last year, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, chaired by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, held a meeting to consider the situation with corruption and other offenses in the process of establishing disability for government officials. Pursuant to the NSDC’s decisions, the government approved an action plan to combat corruption and other offenses in the process of establishing disability for officials.
According to this plan, the Ministry of Health created a joint interagency working group with law enforcement agencies to verify the validity of decisions of medical and social expert commissions on the establishment of disability for public officials.
The group, according to the SBU, the SBI and the Prosecutor General’s Office, has compiled a list of 2,636 cases of officials from more than 70 state agencies for review.
The review of officials’ files is carried out by experts from the Ukrainian State Research Institute of Medical and Social Problems of Disability of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine in Dnipro.
