According to the results of the first year of the NABU’s investigations and the Detectives’ work, more than 580 million UAH of State Enterprises public funds embezzlement was prevented. Also more than 100 million UAH public property damage has already been restored.
«Despite the difficulties we were facing, such as ongoing defamation attempts or resistance of the old corrupted system, we and the prosecutors of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) have achieved significant results.
There is no any other newly created anti-corruption body that demonstrated such significant results just one year after creation,” the NABU Director Artem Sytnyk said.
On December 4, 2015, the NABU Detectives entered the first criminal proceedings into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations. As of December 1, 2016, the Bureau already had 256 active proceedings. Within these pre-trial investigations, 121 suspects were notified of suspicion. The NABU Detectives completed the pre-trial investigations and then sent to court materials of 41 criminal proceedings; 63 indictments were forwarded to the court. However, the court has passed only 9 sentences. The NABU Director and the Head of the SAPO pointed out that neither anti-corruption agencies, no people of Ukraine regard this number as sufficient.
« For new Ukrainian Anti-corruption agencies this year was heavy and intense. And unfortunately, we have questions about the court sentences... But this is only the first year of our work and we hope that it will not be the last one, » said the Head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office Nazar Kholodnitskiy.
Commenting the results of investigations Artem Sytnyk stressed, that achievements should not only include the money returned to the State budget, but also the economic effect - the result of corruption schemes expose.
«The NABU targets not only punishments in corruption abuses, but also the complete elimination of corruption schemes, so that in future new corrupt officials won’t replace those who has already operated these schemes and who has been brought to justice now, » said the Director of the Bureau.
For example, three months after the NABU had revealed and then terminated a so-called "gas scheme", the profit of PJSC Ukrgazdobyvannia reached 162 million UAH, which is five times more than the company earned over almost three years of joint operations with state-owned entities, controlled by MP Oleksandr Onyshchenko. In comparison almost three years of cooperation with these structures brought Ukrgazvydobuvannia 25 million UAH of profit only.
After the Detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau had eliminated the corruption schemes aimed at stealing funds of the PJSC "Ukrzaliznytsia", more than 50 million UAH were returned to the state enterprise's accounts.
Artem Sytnyk also noted that out of all proceedings investigated by the NABU 15 relate to officials, 39 to judges, 25 to prosecutors and 62 to the heads of state enterprises.
«State enterprises are one of the main sources of corruption. Thanks to the coordinated work of the prosecutors and the NABU Detectives the case regarding top- managers of "Naftogaz Ukraine", top-managers of the Odesa Port Plant and those of LLC "Zaporizhye Titanium and Magnesium Combine" have already been sent to court. And this is just the beginning, because now a large number of investigations are at their final stage. They will soon be sent to court,» said the NABU Director.