{"id":29336,"date":"2023-01-24T13:20:27","date_gmt":"2023-01-24T13:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=29336"},"modified":"2023-01-24T13:20:28","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T13:20:28","slug":"top-ukrainian-officials-quit-in-anti-corruption-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2023\/01\/24\/top-ukrainian-officials-quit-in-anti-corruption-drive\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Ukrainian officials quit in anti-corruption drive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Several senior Ukrainian officials have resigned as President Volodymyr Zelensky begins a shake-up of personnel across his government.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A top adviser, four deputy ministers and five regional governors left their posts on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Their departures come as Ukraine launches a broad anti-corruption drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Recently, authorities have seen bribery claims, reports of officials buying food at inflated prices and one figure accused of living a lavish lifestyle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Senior aide Mykhailo Podolyak said Mr Zelensky was responding to a &#8220;key public demand&#8221; that justice should apply to everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The president has already banned state officials from leaving the country unless on authorised business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first to resign on Tuesday was Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the president&#8217;s deputy head of office, who oversaw regional policy and had earlier worked on Mr Zelensky&#8217;s election campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine last February he became a frequent spokesperson for the government. He was accused by Ukrainian investigative journalists of using of several expensive sports cars throughout the war- though denies any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a Telegram post, he thanked Mr Zelensky for &#8220;the opportunity to do good deeds every day and every minute&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Deputy Defence Minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov also resigned, following reports he oversaw the purchase of military food supplies at inflated prices from a relatively unknown firm. The department called this a &#8220;technical mistake&#8221; and claimed no money had changed hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The defence minister himself &#8211; Oleksii Reznikov &#8211; has been under scrutiny for the same reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A host of other top officials were dismissed on Tuesday, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Deputy Prosecutor General Oleskiy Symonenko<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Deputy Minister for Development of Communities and Territories Ivan Lukeryu<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Deputy Minister for Development of Communities and Territories Vyacheslav Negoda<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Deputy Minister for Social Policy Vitaliy Muzychenk<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>And the regional governors of Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Sumy and Kherson<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ukraine has a history of corruption and in 2021 Transparency International ranked the country at 122 out of 180 countries in its ranking of corrupt states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A crackdown is one of the EU&#8217;s key demands if the country is to advance its application to join the bloc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In an address on Sunday, Mr Zelensky promised there would be &#8220;no return to what used to be in the past, to the way various people close to state institutions&#8221; used to live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">His comments followed the arrest of Ukraine&#8217;s Deputy Infrastructure Minister Vasyl Lozinskyi on Saturday on suspicion of accepting a bribe worth over $350,000 (\u00a3285,000) over the supply of electricity generators. He has denied the charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">David Arakhamia, the head of Mr Zelensky&#8217;s Servant of the People party, has said that corrupt officials could face jail time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Officials at all levels have been constantly warned through official and unofficial channels: focus on the war, help the victims, reduce bureaucracy and stop doing dubious business. Many of them have actually listened, but some, unfortunately, did not,&#8221; he said in a Telegram statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;If it doesn&#8217;t work in a civilized way, it will be done according to the laws of wartime. This applies both to recent purchases of generators and to fresh scandals in the ministry of defence.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While there have been anti-corruption reforms in recent years, the stakes are high for Kyiv &#8211; which is receiving billions of dollars worth of financial aid from Western allies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Several senior Ukrainian officials have resigned as President Volodymyr Zelensky begins a shake-up of personnel across his government. A top adviser, four deputy ministers and five regional governors left their posts on Tuesday. Their departures come as Ukraine launches a broad anti-corruption drive. Recently, authorities have seen bribery claims, reports of officials buying food at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":29337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[11261,6850,6975,5777,8421,10076,10387,5520,9194,1384,11996,11337,7916,9309,911,5800,159,9127,6496,2264,12234,8995,10954,5252,7351,10419,7601,5342,7839,12329,5572,6864,5612,9421,11973,3805,9420,10390,11495,8297,3457,7931,6258,5180,5555,9539,4178,5251,3954,10415,594,8280,2472],"class_list":["post-29336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-accused","tag-aid","tag-arrest","tag-banned","tag-bribe","tag-bribery","tag-campaign","tag-cars","tag-charges","tag-corruption","tag-crackdown","tag-demand","tag-deputy-minister","tag-dollars","tag-election","tag-electricity","tag-eu","tag-february","tag-food","tag-government","tag-host","tag-infrastructure","tag-international","tag-invasion","tag-jail","tag-justice","tag-kherson","tag-kyiv","tag-kyrylo-tymoshenko","tag-laws","tag-military","tag-ministers","tag-money","tag-mykhailo-podolyak","tag-one","tag-president","tag-president-volodymyr-zelensky","tag-prices","tag-reforms","tag-resign","tag-russia","tag-territories","tag-transparency","tag-ukraine","tag-ukrainian","tag-victims","tag-volodymyr-zelensky","tag-war","tag-will","tag-work","tag-who","tag-zaporizhzhia","tag-zelensky"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}