Getmantsev calls for transparency in the transfer of funds from NABU/SAPO deals to charitable foundations
15 May 16:30
Ukrainian MP Danylo Getmantsev believes that the practice of transferring funds from deals involving the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) to specific charitable foundations requires greater transparency. The head of the Tax Committee made this remark in a comment to the publication [Komersant].
However, overall, he believes that funds from these agreements should go either directly to the state budget or to military units—without the involvement of foundations as intermediaries.
“I believe that the procedure for selecting a fund among others must be transparent and understandable and must not give rise to corruption risks. It is better if the money is transferred to the army via the budget or to the account of a military unit,” noted Danylo Getmantsev.
Context
According to the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, 2.9 billion hryvnias have already been allocated for the needs of the defense forces following agreements in NABU cases , specifically through the United Foundation, the “Come Back Alive” Foundation, and the Charitable Foundations of Serhiy Prytula and Serhiy Sternenko.
There are no official explanations as to how the funds are selected or why only a specific group of charitable foundations becomes the recipients of the funds. Similarly, there is no transparent mechanism for determining the amounts transferred to any of the aforementioned funds.
NABU does not monitor exactly what these funds are used for—due to a lack of relevant authority.
Legal Assessment
According to former SAPO prosecutor Stanislav Bronevitsky, this practice requires state safeguards, as it is currently not subject to any oversight.
“It is likely that this practice arose based on personal connections between the leadership of the SAPO and NABU and representatives of such funds. It’s likely. But there definitely needs to be some kind of safeguard from the state here. Because once the transfer is made, the state has no control over how these funds are used or where they go. In other words, there is no external oversight,” he explained in an interview with the YouTube channel “Kommersant Ukrainian.”
For his part, lawyer Oleg Shram assessed this practice by NABU/SAPO even more harshly.
In his opinion, this approach to “fund allocation” by NABU and SAPO may actually constitute corruption. This is because current legislation does not provide for the transfer of funds to charitable foundations as part of plea agreements in criminal cases.
“I believe this is an outright corrupt scheme. Why? Because, in essence, suspects or defendants, in a veiled manner, provide someone—it doesn’t matter who—with an unlawful benefit in exchange for the SAPO prosecutors concluding an agreement with them on terms favorable to them. These terms involve the fact that people do not fully compensate for the damage caused by corruption crimes, do not face punishment in the form of confiscation of all property—since most corruption crimes are punishable, among other things, by confiscation of property—and do not avoid actual punishment in the form of imprisonment. “Since such payments to the funds are not provided for by current legislation, they are therefore unlawful,” the lawyer noted.
As a reminder, at the end of last year, NABU and the SAPO transferred 44 million hryvnias to Sternenko’s fund from settlements with the investigation.
