Competition for the director of NABU. Risks and chances of twenty

In the field of the final formation of the anti-corruption bloc, reports ZN

January 16 Competition commission for holding a competition for the position of director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) approved a list of 22 candidates who are admitted to the next stages of the competition. In fact, from this moment the key stages of selection begin. And also a real struggle not only for the chair of the head of NABU, but also for the purity of the result of the competition itself. Because the appointment of a candidate loyal to the authorities to the post of director of the bureau can destroy the entire anti-corruption chain of NAPC-NABU-SAP-VAKS, which has been built for years under the conditions of systematic pressure and attacks by political elites. Only in recent months – with the inclusion of SAP – the anti-corruption unit began to show systemic work.

The Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP) has been a weak link for many years. At first, during the leadership of Nazar Kholodnitsky, it was accompanied by numerous scandals, later we did not have a chief anti-corruption prosecutor at all, so there were actually no impressive results. And now there is a real chance to start really cleaning up the country, and NABU should remain the driver of this process, already under the leadership of the new director.

Nominally, Bankovaya only observes what happens within the framework of the competitive process. But there is information that she does not always manage to keep her distance. Some of the participants have already received calls with an offer to represent the interests of the PGO in a key link in the anti-corruption bloc. Therefore, one should not think that attempts to recruit and bring their candidate into the final three are left behind. It’s only the beginning.

But let’s look at it one by one.

Competition for the director of NABU. What is the scope of the competition?

So, it is from the already recorded 22 people that the commission must determine the top three, whose candidacies will be presented to the Cabinet of Ministers. Of the three, the government will have to choose only one candidate to be appointed director of NABU for all seven years.

The law adopted more than a year ago and the new selection rules determined the key – the configuration of the Competition Commission and the general framework of the competition. Let me remind you that the commission consists of six people appointed by the government: these are three experts delegated by international partners, and three Ukrainian experts.

After numerous scandals and delays with the competition for the head of the SAP, in the case of NABU, the law provided for advantages for international experts. The rules state that the decision is made by a majority of the four members of the commission. At the same time, the support of at least two international experts is required. If the votes are distributed equally and no decision is made, the law allows a decision to be made by three votes, provided that it is supported by two “foreigners”.

Based on the results of the ten meetings of the commission that have already been held, it can be noted that there are no special differences and battles between international and Ukrainian experts. At the same time, the members of the commission elected the Ukrainian scientist Mykola Kucheryavenko as the head. All this allows us to cautiously assume that the competition can take place without the confrontations that accompanied the selection of the head of the SAP. But the main stages are still ahead.

Although the scope of the competition is determined by law, he left the details to the discretion of the commission itself. But it was the commission before the competition that contributed to regulations selection decision that most candidates should be weeded out at the stages of anonymous testing for knowledge of the law and general abilities.

This approach can be criticized, because testing itself is far from an indicator of the quality of a candidate. On the other hand, the results of previous competitions show that it is the candidates who show high results in tests that most often reach the final. Therefore, it is obvious that in this case, it was due to the tests that the commission decided to simplify its further work and limit itself to twenty applicants at the final stages.

The testing phase was not without problems. In particular, some candidates declared about errors identified during testing for knowledge of the law and filed complaints about it. Errors were indeed confirmed in four questions. In cases where, due to errors, candidates received less points, the commission restored justice. But in the end, the errors did not affect the rating.

During testing for general abilities, representatives of the Anti-Corruption Action Center (CPC) were present in the hall and personally convinced of the objectivity and anonymity of the process.

Summing up, a total of 78 people applied for the competition. After the tests for knowledge of the law, there were 50, and after the tests for general abilities – 22 people, since four candidates scored the same, 209 points each.

Who exactly was on the shortlist of candidates?

There are actually no very famous names and public figures in the list of candidates.

Bureau employees were obviously the most motivated to apply for this competition. The secret of such motivation is that for them it is a way to preserve their internal culture, values ​​and independence. After all, today NABU and SAPO remain the only black sheep in the symbiosis of the Ukrainian law enforcement system. The only institutions that have retained their independence from the authorities, in particular thanks to the unprecedented support of international partners.

Overall, 12 out of 22 candidates are bureau-affiliated. Ten are current NABU employees. Two more worked in the bureau before the full-scale invasion.

For example, the second in the ranking, Ruslan Gabrielyan, used to work in NABU, but with the beginning of the invasion, he was mobilized into the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and, already while serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, won the competition for the position of the SAPO prosecutor.

Another of the candidates, Sergei Naumyuk, was the head of one of the NABU divisions. However, this year he was mobilized into the ranks of the Security Service of Ukraine, where he worked before.

Among these 22 candidates, there are some that cause serious doubts. Before testing CPC already wrote about the people who have the most questions. It should be noted that two of them still made it to the final list.

The first of them is Vitaliy Vlasyuk, deputy head of the Kyiv regional military administration, and a former lawyer. In particular, he defended the Altayur company in the OASK, which is still being investigated by NABU. Meanwhile, his brother, Vladislav Vlasyuk, is now an adviser to the president’s office, working within the Yermak-McFaul sanctions group.

Another dubious candidate is Semyon Krivonos, head of the State Inspectorate for Architecture and Urban Planning. In 2016, he became the winner of the competition for the head of the Odessa Territorial Center of NABU. But he quickly resigned when the journalists Slidstvo.Info discoveredthat his financial situation does not correspond to income. In particular, Krivonos did not declare apartment in Kyiv worth UAH 3 million, quickly transferring it to his mother.

The leader of the rating now is Ruslan Kravchenko, head of the Buchansk prosecutor’s office. It should be noted that earlier Kravchenko worked in the military prosecutor’s office under the leadership of the scandalous military prosecutor Anatoly Matios. It must be remembered that it was Matios who was behind a number of attacks on NABU during his tenure. In 2019-2020, Kravchenko applied for the position of SAPO prosecutor, but he was not selected.

A notable figure among the candidates is also Yuriy Belousov, who now heads the War Department of the Office of the Prosecutor General and is responsible for organizing investigations into Russian war crimes in Ukraine. Prior to his appointment, the candidate was Executive Director of the Human Rights Expertise Centre.

Competition for the director of NABU. What’s next?

During the next stage, all 22 candidates must complete a practical task. It consists of two blocks: 1) checking how candidates possess practical professional skills and abilities, and 2) checking whether candidates have organizational and leadership qualities.

At the same time, each of the candidates will be carefully analyzed both by the commission and representatives of civil society. Everyone can already send materials about candidates to the commission by e-mail (email protected)

If candidates cannot clearly answer the questions of the commission and citizens in writing, they will be interviewed for integrity. But the most important indicator of honesty is the presence of a declaration of property status submitted by the candidate. After all, even if the parliament suspended the declaration, it is simply impossible to imagine the director of NABU without a filed declaration.

After evaluating honesty, everyone about whom there are doubts should drop out of the competition. And the rest will have another interview – about professional competence. It is after this stage that the commission must choose the troika, which will be submitted for approval to the government.

All these procedures will take at least one and a half to two months. therefore fulfill a wish Denis Shmyhal – to submit the final three before the end of January is simply unrealistic. This is not the first time Shmyhal has criticized the commission for slow work. But this whole game is just an attempt to divert attention from the fact that it is the government that has been blocked start of the competition.

Obviously, the government hopes to get at least someone in the final three with whom it will be possible to negotiate. But there is hope that the commission will not give her such a chance and the internal sieve of the competition will be stronger than Bankova’s attempts to trick or recruit her candidate.

Now it looks like a representative of NABU will be able to get a position only if the bureau employees themselves enter the final three. We at the Anti-Corruption Action Center expect that the final three will be exclusively independent candidates and those who have already shown results in the investigation of top corruption.

Preserving and strengthening the independence of NABU in this difficult time for Ukraine cannot be underestimated. It is confidence in the independence of anti-corruption bodies, their institutional viability that is and will be the key guarantor of Western partners’ trust in Ukraine, without whose help we cannot win this war.

Elena Shcherban
Head of the Legal Department of the Public Organization “Anti-Corruption Action Center”

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