April 2017: the Ukrainian government holds a session on mid-term strategy for 2017-2020, Kyiv. (c) NurPhoto/SIPA USA/PA Images. All rights reserved. On 27 March, President Petro Poroshenko signed into law a series of amendments to Ukraine’s Law on the Prevention of Corruption. These amendments, which compel members of Ukraine’s anti-corruption NGOs to release financial declarations, immediately elicited a response from segments of civil society and investigative journalist community. In turn, this provoked a considerable backlash by political proponents of the amendments, as well as some segments of society who felt that the amendments would promote more transparency amongst NGOs involved in combatting corruption.
Opponents of the amendments have pointed, time and again, to their apparent underlying intent. José Ugaz, chairman of Transparency International, perhaps stated it best in proclaiming that: “These amendments are a vindictive retaliation by lawmakers who are angry that they are required to declare their wealth. There is no justification for singling out anti-corruption groups.”
A closer look at how the latest amendments targeting anti-corruption NGOs were passed and the individuals who are involved in the war on endemic corruption in Ukraine shows that, despite its proponents’ efforts to argue otherwise, their intent is to restrict, if not outright subvert the struggle to scale back corruption and establish permanent institutions to dismantle the entrenched infrastructure which undermines Ukraine’s democracy and sovereignty.
