Corruption during the war: 98% of corrupt officials got off with fines, not jail
29 October 2024 11:55
Almost 7,000 corrupt officials have been sentenced since the start of the full-scale war, according to the NACP’s Unified State Register of Persons Who Committed Corruption or Corruption-Related Offenses. Only 1.5% of the cases resulted in imprisonment, while the rest were fined. This is reported by "Komersant Ukrainian" with reference to data from Opendatabot.
6,877 sentences have been passed on corrupt officials since the beginning of the full-scale war. This number is significantly lower than before the war. For comparison, during this time, 2,500 sentences were handed down annually, while in 2021 the Register of Corrupt Officials was replenished with 6,870 entries.
Since the beginning of this year, 1758 corrupt officials have already been sentenced.
“Such dynamics is due to the fact that at the beginning of the great invasion, the submission of declarations was voluntary for officials, and therefore not controlled by the NACP,” the statement said.
Top articles used to convict corrupt officials this year:
- Offering, promising or giving an undue benefit to an official – 663 sentences or 37.7% of the total. This is a third less than last year.
- Late submission of declarations – 623 sentences or 35.4%. Compared to last year, such violations increased by 34 times. The NACP notes that data on late submission of declarations began to be received only in April 2024, when three declaration campaigns were completed at once. These are tens of thousands of declarations, and not all of them have been processed yet. This figure is likely to increase in the coming years and reach the level of the period before the full-scale invasion.
- Violation of the requirements for prevention and settlement of conflicts of interest – 281 sentences or 16%. This is half as many as last year.
What punishment do corrupt officials receive?
In 98% of cases this year, criminals were sentenced to a fine, which is 1,714 sentences. Only 1.5% of the convicted were sentenced to imprisonment, which is 27 sentences.
Whatpunishment do corrupt officials receive?
- Fines – 1,714 – 97.5%
- Imprisonment – 23 – 1.3%
- Restriction of liberty – 7 – 0.4%
- Community service – 7 – 0.4%
- Probation – 4 – 0.2%
- Exemption from punishment – 2 – 0.1%
- Arrest – 1 – 0.1%
Where are the most corrupt officials
This year, most offenders were sentenced in Lviv region – 172 or 9.8% of the total number.
Slightly fewer offenders were convicted in Vinnytsia region – 151 or 8.6%.
Odesa region closed the top three with 115 cases or 6.5%.
“Some functions of the NACP were suspended for two years due to the full-scale war, so now we have to process all the accumulated workload as soon as possible, which was previously done in stages. We have changed the approach to selecting and verifying declarations by introducing auto-checks and selecting only declarations with a high risk rating for full verification. Law enforcers have already opened 126 criminal proceedings based on the materials of full NACP inspections in just 9 months of this year. Upon court decisions, we will be able to enter persons who receive appropriate sentences into the Register,”
– the NACP said.
It should be noted that from the beginning of the full-scale war until the fall of 2023, the officials’ declarations were not verified. Officials were supposed to submit data for 2021 and 2022 by early 2023, and for the previous year – by April 2024.
