First Audit of Anti-Corruption Body is Done – What's Next?

On July 26, the Cabinet of Ministers published the long-awaited report of the external independent assessment of the effectiveness of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention. Let's find out what should be done next. Transparency International Ukraine has been monitoring the work of the NACP since its official launch in 2016.

The activities of the then composition of the Agency sparked a lot of criticism, so part of its reforming included the introduction of external independent audit. After the reboot of the body in 2020, the National Agency seemed open to new proposals and declared transparency and a new quality of its work. Therefore, TI Ukraine, together with other colleagues from the public sector, conducted a number of studies of various areas of the Agency's work and provided recommendations to improve the work of the body.

We hoped that the comments of civil society would be carefully studied and considered by the NACP, but this did not happen every time, which is proved by our analytical conclusions. Now, the first in the history of independent Ukraine external audit of the NACP, an anti-corruption body, covering its operation of 2020-2021, has finally been completed. TI Ukraine was one of the respondents who received and filled out the assessment questionnaire provided by the auditors.The auditors did not find the Agency's work ineffective.

However, it was not found effective either. Let me briefly summarize what the commission indicated in the audit report. The auditors evaluated the fulfillment of 206 criteria, of which the NACP fulfilled 148 (72%); the Agency failed to comply with the remaining 58 criteria.

Among the main deficiencies in the work of the NACP, the following were identified:

1. insufficient level of transparency of the Agency's work,
2. errors in the development of regulations governing the work of employees,
3. deficiencies in the organizational structure and personnel decisions,
4. shortcomings in the functioning of internal control.

Interestingly, all these issues, which civil society emphasized for three and a half years in their appeals to the NACP, were also reflected in the report of the audit commission.

Therefore, the audit found that our comments had made sense. We welcome the fact that the NACP has already announced development of a Plan to Implement Audit Recommendations in the near future, which will increase the efficiency of its operation. By the way, the auditors provided 120 recommendations -- 46 high-priority ones and 74 others.

By the way, soon, in six months, the mandate of the current head of the NACP expires, but he still can join and manage the implementation of recommendations in the remaining time. A new competition for the NACP Head is expected in autumn. We hope that the future selection commission will pay attention to how candidates plan to implement the steps highlighted by the auditors in the report.

Such audits are really relevant, especially for anti-corruption bodies, despite the Russian aggression against Ukraine. But the official annual external audit of the NABU, provided for in the legislation as far back as 2014, has never been conducted. Such audits of the SAPO and the ARMA are not provided for by law at all.

Independent, comprehensive audits of the operation of the ARMA, the NABU, and the SAPO should be conducted to identify a clear path forward and ensure that it fully meets their potential.  In order to conduct them quickly, conclusions should be drawn and lessons learned from the audit of the NACP; the methodology and criteria for conducting such audits should be simplified, including for the next audit of the NACP, which should begin in January 2024.  The current methodology approved by the Cabinet of Ministers contains as many as 237 unequal criteria.

For example, one comprehensive criterion may cover the recognition by donors, public, and international organizations of the effectiveness and impartiality of the NACP, for instance, in the field of whistleblower protection, while another, not so comprehensive criterion, contains only the figure of staff turnover, which should not exceed 20% of the body's staff. However, these two criteria are of equal importance for the formula for determining the ineffectiveness of the body during the assessment. Currently, the methodology does not allow the commission to prioritize certain important criteria.

Consideration should be given to an approach where the methodology and criteria (there should be substantially fewer of them) are approved by the audit commission. Similarly, the formula for determining inefficiency, that is, the threshold of unfulfilled criteria, should also be revised towards greater realism. A separate issue is the openness of the bodies to such audits.

The report of the audit commission reads that the NACP did not provide a number of documents for the analysis, despite numerous requests from the auditors. It also contains a sentence stating that out of more than 130 questionnaires sent to government and non-governmental stakeholders, the commission received 40 completed questionnaires (that is, less than a third). In the future, government agencies and other organizations should be more responsible in providing information to auditors.

After all, the completeness of data from various entities will make the assessment of higher quality. To achieve this, the next commission will need to provide for sufficient time to respond to the questionnaires. The body under evaluation should provide all documents to the auditors for examination.

Successful anti-corruption reform is not only something that international partners will consider, but also something that Ukraine needs.

To do this, it is necessary to identify problems and challenges in the functioning of the anti-corruption ecosystem and correct them with the help of, in particular, the recommendations of independent auditors.