Policy

The Bureau of Economic Security will be rebooted: Rada adopts law in first reading

The Verkhovna Rada has supported in the first reading Bill No. 10439 on the reboot of the Bureau of Economic Security (BES). This was stated by MP Oleksiy Honcharenko, according to Komersant ukrainskyi

The bill was supported by 264 MPs.

The new version of the draft law provides for

• the selection and submission of no more than two candidates for the position of the BES director to the Prime Minister of Ukraine;
• the first deadlines for independent assessments (audits) of the BES’s performance (the assessment is carried out by the Commission after the first and third year in the position of the Director of the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine);
• the mechanism of certification of BES employees has been finalised, the period of which may not exceed twelve months;
• the Director of the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine forms a new disciplinary commission

MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak noted that the amendments provide for mandatory re-certification, and that international representatives have a decisive vote.

“This is a good thing. We have significantly squeezed them on the main amendments: the decisive vote of international representatives, mandatory re-certification. That’s all. What should be in place is one, not two, candidates, a detailed re-certification, and a detailed selection procedure. All this is in the comments of business, the IMF and the G7,”

– he wrote.

According to him, the Head of the Coalition, David Arakhamia, has committed to take into account the comments of business, the IMF and the G7 before the second reading.

The law on the BES is part of the Ukrainian government’s commitments under the IMF programme, with a structural benchmark of the end of June 2024.

The Bureau of Economic Security was created in 2021 on the basis of the tax police, although it was supposed to be a new body that would concentrate the functions of combating economic crimes.

On 9 April, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine appointed Serhii Perkhun as acting head of the Bureau of Economic Security.

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