Meeting of the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy will take place on April 28 at 2.30 p.m., during which members of the Competition Commission for the Selection of the Head of the Bureau of Economic Security will be determined. According to the Anti-Corruption Action Center, the majority of Members of Parliament sent applications for the competition on behalf of public associations.
According to the Anti-Corruption Action Center, only 22 candidates sent applications for the competition, including three Members of Parliament from the Finance Committee. These are Members of Parliament from the party “Servant of the People” Olga Vasylevska-Smaglyuk, Andriy Kholodov and Yuliia Didenko.
According to the law, future Competition Commission should consist of 9 people (3 persons from the National Security and Defense Council, 3 persons from the Cabinet of Ministers and 3 persons from the Parliament). The quota of the Verkhovna Rada also has its division: 2 persons are determined by the Rada according to the proposal of the Finance Committee and 1 person on the proposal of the Law Enforcement Committee.
It is the Finance Committee that has completed acceptance of documents from candidates and has to determine 2 candidates tomorrow who will be put to the vote in the hall of the Parliament. It is important that according to the law, candidates from the Parliament must be selected from among public associations, trade unions and their associations, associations, employers’ organizations and their associations, and non-state media.
“If current Members of Parliament are selected to the Commission, it will mean nothing more than political commitment of the competition from the very beginning. It is impossible to speak about independence and objectivity of the Commission under such conditions. It seems that the Parliament will try to fail independence of this body from the first steps of its creation”, expert of the AntAC Olena Shcherban commented .
Member of Parliament Kholodov is the subject of journalistic investigation. In particular, journalists proved that family of Member of Parliament Kholodov is connected with business of cigarette distribution, and pointed out possible tax violations, as well as exposed him in lobbying in the Verkhovna Rada legislative improvement of the business. Also, scandalous Member of Parliament Oleksander Yurchenko was included in Kholodov’s group in the Parliament to whom the NABU and the SAPO handed over suspicion for bribery. Yurchenko’s assistant took first 13.000 out of 200.000 USD, which were provided to Member of Parliament for the draft law related to household waste.
Olga Vasylevska-Smaglyuk is Member of Parliament from the Servant of the People, who worked as journalist at the channel 1+1 before the Parliament. Media and political experts refer her to the group of Members of Parliament controlled by the oligarch Kolomoyskyi. In particular, Vasylevska-Smaglyuk earlier submitted more than 1.500 amendments to the so-called “anti-Kolomoyskyi law” in order to block the draft law. We should recall that this draft law was requirement of the International Monetary Fund and made return of Privatbank to the oligarch impossible.
According to media reports, Yuliia Didenko is member of the so-called “Pavlyuk’s group” in the Verkhovna Rada. We should recall that Ilya Pavlyuk is related to smuggling schemes. Member of Parliament Didenko abstained during the vote in the Committee on the draft law on elimination of corruption schemes during assessment of real estate (Yatsenko’s scheme), signed the draft resolution on dismissal of the head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and was among “Servants” who had not opposed “Yermak’s agreements” in Minsk.