Ukraine PM, NGOs call for resignation of anti-corruption leader

Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman demanded on March 29 the resignation of National Corruption Prevention Agency Head Natalia Korchak after such calls were made by anti-corruption NGOs, including Transparency International. They accused her of spending the last year undermining the implementation of Ukraine’s electronic income and assets declarations system, including the failure to have the website functioning for the last week, as well as incidents such as the alleged persecution of anti-corruption activists. They asked that Groysman launch a new hiring process in line with requirements. In response, Korchak refused to resign, while the Justice Ministry said it wasn’t the prime minister’s authority to dismiss her.

Zenon Zawada: It’s no surprise that the anti-corruption agencies created after the EuroMaidan have been mired in scandal, but the hope was that they’d be upsetting the corrupt establishment and bureaucracy. Instead in Korchak’s case, she has upset Ukraine’s NGO community for her own alleged corruption, which is the nightmare that Western reformers and EU bureaucrats had hoped to avoid. Regardless of how this conflict turns out, it’s a poor signal of Ukraine’s anti-corruption campaign, which is now chaotic, besides being slow and inefficient. Surely the IMF and EU lenders are taking note.