How many prosecutors in Ukraine have registered disability: journalists found out the figures
23 October 2024 14:40
The number of people with disabilities in the prosecutor’s office may be three times higher than the average number of people in the population. This is stated in an article by Ekonomichna Pravda, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
The journalists analysed data from 8,070 declarations that they were able to identify in 2023 (by position or place of work where the word “prosecutor’s office” appears). As of the beginning of 2024, the number of prosecutors on the payroll was about 9,200, which is an 87% sample.
According to the EP, prosecutors can exercise the legal right to a long-service pension upon completion of 25 years of service, including work in the prosecution service. The amount of the pension is 60% of the monthly salary, but not more than UAH 29.2 thousand. It is noted that over the past ten years, the staff of the prosecutor’s office has been halved, and the number of pensioners has increased by 30% since the outbreak of the war. Obviously, such a sharp increase in the number of pensioners is impossible without a disability group.
Data published by the media also show that about 10% of pension recipients under the Law on the Prosecutor’s Office receive pensions on the basis of disability. In the declarations of ordinary prosecutors, this figure is 19%, and among managers – 38%. It should be noted that the presence of disability pensions also gives advantages in employment and transfers between positions, and reduces the likelihood of dismissal.
However, this issue raises not only ethical concerns but also financial implications. In 2023, UAH 288 million was spent on prosecutorial pensions. The average pension of a prosecutor is UAH 199 thousand per year or UAH 16.6 thousand per month.
According to the infographic published by the media, the largest number of prosecutors receiving disability pensions are in Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy, Sumy, Kirovohrad and Ivano-Frankivsk regions. The lowest number of such officials is in Kyiv and Kyiv region.
On 16 October, Yuriy Butusov, editor-in-chief of Censor.NET, reported that 51 prosecutors in Khmelnytsky region had received disability benefits using the “services” of Tetiana Krupa, the chief doctor of the Khmelnytsky Medical and Social Expertise, who is suspected of corruption.
Media journalists have learned that almost all prosecutors in Khmelnytskyi region have been declared to be disabled in the 2nd group, according to the decision of the chief doctor of the MSEC, Tetiana Krupa. They have been receiving disability pensions from the state for years and continue to do so, according to the decisions of the head of the Pension Fund, Oleksandr Krupa, the son of the corruption suspect.
“The higher the position in Khmelnytskyi, the higher the degree of disability and the more money Oleksandr Krupa, the head of the Pension Fund, paid to his acquaintances from the pensioners’ pockets,” explained Yuriy Butusov.
According to him, prosecutors do not need disability dividends as cash payments. “Every prosecutor in the region has dozens of hectares of land, apartments, houses, cars. However, according to labour law, disabled people have an advantage in employment and it is much harder to fire them when they move from one position to another. The presence of a disabled wife is an additional reason to prevent a prosecutor from being transferred from his “home” region, where he has all his friends, property, and flows, to some other region that is not as “convenient”.
