Police demonstratively arrest top Ukraine official at gov’t meeting

The head of Ukraine’s State Emergency Service (SES) Serhiy Bochkovsky was arrested at a Mar. 25 meeting of the cabinet of ministers. He and his deputy are suspected of organizing a corruption scheme involving the procurement of fuel for the Service. According to Ukraine’s internal affair Minister Asren Awakov, the winners of fuel tenders were selling it at inflated price to SES and were paying rollbacks to offshore accounts which are allegedly related to Bochkovsky. The same day top officials of SES in its head office and regional divisions, also suspecting in participation in the corruption scheme, were dismissed. The total budgeted expenditures of SES, responsible for liquidation and prevention of emergency situations, are UAH 4.2 bln in 2015.  

Alexander Paraschiy: This is clearly something new for Ukraine, that somebody is being arrested right during a government meeting, so this was more of a show. But the fact itself that a high-ranked official in Ukraine was arrested for suspicion in corruption is something very unusual. At least, this gives a chance for anti-corruption investigations to intensify in the country which pleases international observers and the local electorate as well.