Reform Index 224: Monitoring the Lifestyle of Declarants and Prioritization of Recovery Projects

Reform Index 224: Monitoring the Lifestyle of Declarants and Prioritization of Recovery Projects

Photo: ua.depositphotos.com / KansudaKaewwannarat
21 December 2023
FacebookTwitterTelegram
796

The Reform Index’s 224th issue covers the period from October 23 to November 6 and incorporates five reforms. However, none of them were significant enough to drive the index value upward. As in the 223rd issue, the Reform Index rating is +0.4 (on a scale ranging from -5 to +5). 

Graph 1. Dynamics of the Reform Monitoring Index

Graph 2. Values of the Reform Monitoring Index and its Components in the Current Assessment Round

Order for monitoring the lifestyle of declarants, +1 point

The National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) has adopted an order outlining the procedure for monitoring the lifestyle of declarants. This will help uncover corruption cases by identifying inconsistencies between the lifestyle / expenditures of public officials and their reported income.

Lifestyle monitoring will be conducted selectively based on information obtained from individuals, legal entities, media, or other open sources. 

In 2020, NACP attempted to monitor declarants’ lifestyles using an “office-based format” without an approved subordinate act for this purpose. However, in the same year, the Constitutional Court declared such measures unconstitutional. Therefore, establishing these procedures is a step forward in implementing effective monitoring of potential corrupt individuals. However, the document has its drawbacks. Specifically, it does not define time limits for conducting checks and lacks a clear list of mandatory or permissible actions during the monitoring process.

Information about the Reforms Index project, the list of Index experts and the database of the regulations assessed are available here.

Principles of prioritizing reconstruction projects, +1 point

The Ministry for Communities, Territories, and Infrastructure Development has issued an order with recommendations for prioritizing reconstruction projects. This is because this year, money from the Fund for the Elimination of Consequences of Armed Aggression was allocated based on requests from central and local government authorities and was not evaluated against a defined list of comparative criteria.

The order from the Ministry includes a list of indicators that provide an assessment of the feasibility of a project from economic, financial, environmental, and social perspectives. These indicators are based on the Sectoral Priorities agreed upon with the World Bank’s “Ukraine: Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment” and the Activities and allowable types of operations considered universally aligned with the Paris Agreement’s mitigation goals. 

Objects that receive high ratings for both socio-environmental and financial-economic indices (an index is a comprehensive assessment based on a set of criteria) will be classified as “high-priority” projects. Those with a high rating in only one index will be classified as “medium-priority.”

Chart 3. Value of Reform Index components and number of events

Reform Index from VoxUkraine aims to provide a comprehensive assessment of reform efforts by Ukraine’s authorities. The Index is based on expert assessments of changes in the regulatory environment in six areas: Governance, Public Finance, Monetary system, Business Environment, Energy, Human Capital.

Authors

Attention

The author doesn`t work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have no relevant affiliations