A few days before the official announcement of the results of the competition for the position of head of the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, the current first deputy head of NAPC, Artem Sytnyk, held a closed meeting at which he presented those present with a fait accompli – the winner has already been determined. UNN learned this from meeting participants who wished to speak only on condition of anonymity, given the sensitivity of the issue.
Details
As UNN managed to find out, Andriy Vyshnevskyi has been identified as the main candidate for the position of head, and if something prevents his appointment, Dmytro Kalmykov will take the position.
The meeting took place in Artem Sytnyk's office on February 22, while the finalists of the competition were still preparing for interviews (they are scheduled for February 24 and 25). Sytnyk, who, by the way, was held accountable for a corruption offense while serving as head of NABU, gathered a narrow circle of the NAPC team and announced that Andriy Vyshnevskyi would be the winner of the competition, and the backup option, in case of force majeure, would be Dmytro Kalmykov. As UNN sources said, Sytnyk wants to implement everything very quickly – the results will be announced on February 25. Subsequently, the government, taking into account the risk of delegitimizing the competition due to the lack of transparency in its conduct, must quickly appoint the winner to the position. The next step will be the replacement of deputies. Sytnyk himself, by agreement with Vyshnevskyi and Kalmykov, will retain the position of first deputy and will be responsible for the financial control function. Kalmykov will receive the position of deputy. If Vyshnevskyi's appointment as head is impossible, Kalmykov will take this position, and Vyshnevskyi will be appointed deputy. After that, a number of personnel and organizational changes are planned at NAPC: a change in the staffing table, the complete liquidation of the unit that dealt with issues related to bringing Russia and its accomplices to justice. The internal control and HR teams that conducted official checks on Vyshnevskyi will be dismissed. In total, about 50% of the agency's personnel are planned to be dismissed.
NAPC must fight nepotism, promote transparent competitions for appointment to public positions. The imitation of a competition, which he (Artem Sytnyk - ed.) boasts about to the team, puts a fat cross on the next four years of NAPC's work.
Rumors about an agreement between Kalmykov and Vyshnevskyi with Sytnyk, who, through the "Anti-Corruption Action Center" (a public organization - ed.), would ensure victory for one and a deputy for the other, in exchange for retaining the position of first deputy and their non-interference in control (financial control - powers to check declarations - ed.), have been around for a long time. We thought it was standard noise. When Sytnyk confirmed this, we realized that what would follow would be "everything for friends, the law for enemies."
Realizing the full importance of the processes and consequences of reporting false information that could discredit both international organizations and competitions as a whole, and cast doubt on the legitimacy of the future head, the agency contacted several other individuals in the government, NAPC, and the public sector to confirm or refute our findings and reported information. Each source named one of the two mentioned surnames as the likely winner, explaining this with the main reason – support from Sytnyk, including through his close contacts with Iryna Shyba, who heads the commission's secretariat. We will not evaluate Artem Sytnyk himself and his achievements as head of NABU or first deputy head of NAPC, but regardless of his reputation and the trust he enjoys in society, his influence on the commission's work is illegal. The private interest that motivates the use of influence in the form of retaining a position and a direction that allows "punishing" is dishonest. The consequence of this will be not only the illegitimacy of the new head and the capture of the body by a narrow group of people, but also the discrediting of the entire system of competitions and the anti-corruption movement. Is the warring country paying too high a price for the wounded ambitions of one person?
UNN has gathered a lot of interesting information about the competition, which was practically non-transparent from the very beginning, and by the end, it ceased to be a competition at all.
The competition lasted from December last year, and media attention to it was rather sluggish. With the exception of a few publications from public organizations involved by the commission itself to assist in its conduct, and the Judicial and Legal Newspaper, a publication for lawyers by lawyers, there were practically no other analyses. NAPC can confidently be called one of the most underestimated bodies in the country. Mistakenly underestimated. 64 people submitted documents to participate in the competition. The commission admitted 51 to the selection, explaining in detail the reasons for disqualifying the rest. 24 people who scored 107 or more points in the general aptitude test were admitted to the second stage of the competition. And it was at this moment that the Competition Commission, consisting of three representatives from Ukraine and three from international organizations, completed the transparent process of evaluating candidates and switched to a practically closed, subjective mode of disqualification. As a result of testing knowledge of anti-corruption legislation, ethical leadership, an interview with a psychologist, preparing an essay on the strategic vision of the agency's future, and an integrity interview, the Competition Commission excluded another 14 people from further participation in the competition. None of the disqualified were given explanations for their exclusion, nor were the results of the testing and other stages published. The commission did not provide any explanations at all as to why exactly these ten people were chosen to participate in the final. The chosen ten do not have any common features; among them are individuals who can confidently be called dishonest, not all have experience in leadership positions, and some showed minimally acceptable results during the first and only transparent stage of evaluation. At a closed meeting with commission members, individual representatives of public organizations expressed their concerns about the non-transparency of the selection. Some voiced them publicly, emphasizing that such actions by the commission could discredit the very idea of competitions in the eyes of Ukrainians. But this did not affect the commission's position. Why some were disqualified and others were admitted remained a secret of the commission.
Favorites of the "competition"
We have learned facts about two favorites of this selection, one of whom may be announced as the winner tomorrow. Let's present the most interesting facts.
Dmytro Kalmykov:
- Dmytro's own brother was convicted in 2017 for financing terrorism;
- Kalmykov himself had ties to the so-called "LNR," which he used to preserve his property in the occupied territory and transfer resources from the territory controlled by Ukraine.
Andriy Vyshnevskyi:
- Vyshnevskyi left all his previous jobs with scandals; at the Ministry of Justice, he even sat at a table that was moved to the corridor to convince him, as a dismissed employee, to leave the office;
- in 2011, Vyshnevskyi was investigated on suspicion of committing a crime under Article 296 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (hooliganism);
- in 2013, Vyshnevskyi was investigated on suspicion of committing a crime under Article 307 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (drugs);
- Vyshnevskyi was exposed using a forged document of unfitness for military service during employment, about which, according to our sources, the Commission was informed but did not ask Vyshnevskyi this question, nor about the previous two points;
- Vyshnevskyi was dismissed from NAPC "under the article" for improper performance of duties as a result of an official investigation.
Now these individuals may head the anti-corruption body of a warring country for the next four years.