Ukrainian President: I hope that the creation of anti-corruption infrastructure will have been completed by the next presidential elections in Ukraine

President Petro Poroshenko is hopeful that the creation of anti-corruption infrastructure will have been completed by the next presidential elections in Ukraine.

"We have almost a year before the presidential elections and I hope that we will be able to complete the creation of anti-corruption infrastructure, which is totally unprecedented in the world," the Head of State said at the joint press conference with the Federal President of Germany.

Petro Poroshenko reminded that from the very first days of his presidential term, a series of extremely effective steps aimed at combating corruption had been taken. "We have introduced extremely effective measures that today either limit or nearly eliminate corruption in many sectors of the economy," he said.

The President called the creation and launch of the ProZorro electronic procurement system one of the most efficient measures. "A very successful application of the ProZorro system for public procurement, which allowed saving hundreds of billions of hryvnias. We have launched this system together with the Government, developed it and today it already brings effective results," the Head of State emphasized.

The next important step, according to Petro Poroshenko, is the anti-corruption measures in the energy sector, which allowed to eliminate the $ 10 billion deficit of NJSC Naftogaz and ultimately make it a lucrative company, “equalize positions and eliminate the corruption flows used by the previous government".

According to the President, the elimination of corruption schemes in the tax system is no less important: "Only with the compensation of VAT, previous corrupt officials put hundreds of millions of dollars  in their pockets. To date, all companies, including German ones, have no problems with transparent and automatic VAT compensation”.

The Head of State is proud that an independent, unbiased anticorruption infrastructure was created in Ukraine under his initiative - the National Anticorruption Bureau, Specialized Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office, National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, introduction of the system of e-declarations, through which 1 million 200 thousand civil servants and people who receive money from the state budget report on their wealth and incomes.

"To date, joint and consistent anticorruption measures allow to bring to justice ministers, deputies of the Parliament, governors of certain regions. And this is another confirmation of an absolutely effective functioning of anticorruption infrastructure," Petro Poroshenko said.

He also expressed hope for the completion of the process of establishing an anticorruption court and stressed that he was doing everything in his power for that. "On December 22, I registered the presidential bill on the anticorruption court, which was supported by almost a constitutional majority," the President said.

"Currently, the Parliament is considering almost two thousand amendments to this bill, but I sincerely hope that the Parliament will be able to adopt the relevant bill and we will be able to begin the process of creating an anticorruption court already in July this year. And this year, this process will be completed and Ukraine will have an anticorruption court," the Head of State summed up.

Original