The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine is "known" for its ability to loudly announce the exposure of another scheme and serve a suspicion on a top official. However, these cases often fall apart in courts or do not even reach the end of the line.
A good example is the criminal proceedings against former Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan. Detectives opened one proceeding for possible illicit enrichment and declaration of false information, and another for reducing port fees in 2017.
However, both cases fell apart in the courts. The first one was closed by the High Anti-Corruption Court due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, and the second one resulted in the ex-minister's acquittal.
However, the NABU did not officially apologize to the former minister for the illegal criminal prosecution and damage to his business reputation. This was done only by the detectives themselves in private conversations, Volodymyr Omelyan said in an exclusive interview with UNN.
- Both NABU cases against you failed. Has the NABU apologized to you or perhaps paid compensation for reputational damage?
- Despite a certain biased attitude towards me on the part of the NABU, I decided not to sue for compensation. Especially after they lost all instances together with the SAPO in my second case, which concerned port tariffs and fees. And I was guided by the only logic here - not to harm NABU even more. Because, let's just say, despite the obvious problems with the management and some dishonest employees, most of the detectives I know are highly professional and motivated people who are sincerely trying to fulfill the mandate of their bureau. And I understand that such a lawsuit will deal another blow to the NABU's reputation. Although I would certainly have the right to do so, because I have been mentioned in NABU reports for many years as the minister against whom criminal proceedings have been opened. It's not just media coverage, it's problems with banking institutions, business reputation, and of course, financial costs on my part. Because, frankly speaking, the cost of legal services was very significant for me. However, I had a conversation with the NABU detectives who participated in my first and second cases. They personally apologized, at the level of detectives. I hope the NABU also has no claims against me, and they realize that the first and second cases were losing from the very beginning. Unfortunately, there was political influence here, and the NABU leadership failed to protect its employees from this influence and the execution of illegal instructions.
- NABU has already been compared to NKVD because of "PR" cases that later fall apart in courts. They destroy reputation, take away a career and thus the future of a person who later turns out to be innocent.
- During my communication, both formal and informal, with the SAPO, they emphasize that the opening of criminal proceedings does not matter to the person under suspicion. That only the court can establish the correctness or otherwise of this investigation. On the one hand, this is true, but in fact, any report of an investigation against a person by the NABU or the SAPO, structures that until recently had high credibility among Ukrainian society, has huge reputational losses for the person against whom such an investigation is being carried out. So it's not just a matter of opening and closing the proceedings, it's a very serious thing. I would like detectives and prosecutors to be personally responsible for their actions. That is, if they open a proceeding, do not bring it to court, but hand over a suspicion or fail in court, they should be fired.
In addition, at the beginning of the NABU's work, there were many unpleasant public incidents when certain case files were covered publicly, which is prohibited. Unfortunately, we had the same thing recently when we saw that there was political interference in the work of the NABU, and for political expediency, some cases were investigated, while others were not. But the main tragedy is that in the 10 years of existence of NABU, SAPO, and to a lesser extent HACC, we have not had any serious investigations into the destruction of key corruption schemes, we have not had any category A officials brought to justice. No matter what anyone says, district-level judges or some department directors are not an indicator of performance. It's been 10 years, which is a long time. If we fought like this or reformed the way NABU works, we would already be at the level of a backward African country.
- One of the recent "high-profile" cases of the NABU is the case against the former Minister of Agrarian Policy Mykola Solskyi. The public has a lot of questions about it, because the NABU case is based on events that happened seven years ago, long before he became minister, and the opening of the proceedings coincided with the Polish demarche. Do you think that NABU's actions could have been intentional?
- In the case of Solsky's case, I am not deeply involved in the material, but for me, as a former minister, it was very strange that a case from the time when he was not head of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy was taken and a suspicion was served on him. Whether NABU could be involved in some foreign policy activities - well, let's say I personally had such suspicions when my second case was being considered regarding the reduction of port tariffs and fees. At that time, we explained to the HACC and the Supreme Court that Ukrainian ports are actually export-oriented. Our logic behind these actions to reduce port tariffs and fees was to increase the competitive ability of Ukrainian ports in the field of imports and transit.
Unfortunately, it coincided, or perhaps it happened that in the case of our actions, we seriously began to compete with Russian ports. And in fact, the actions of NABU, what they tried to do by accusing me of illegality of my decisions, were aimed at strengthening the competitiveness of Russian ports.
In the case of Solsky, it seems to me that politically, this decision to serve him with a suspicion, to knock him and his key deputy, who was in charge of negotiations with the Poles, is not a wise decision. But here we are talking exclusively about the criminal component, and for me it is also a big question why there are no claims to his work as a minister, but an old case is being brought up.
- The Rada announced that in the near future the Anti-Corruption Committee will hear a report on the work of the NABU in connection with "PR" cases. In your opinion, is this decision appropriate?
- I do not think that MPs have a sufficient level of competence to assess the work of the NABU since its creation. This should be in the hands of an independent audit that will conduct a detailed analysis: what happened, how it happened, and what was the basis for certain decisions. I would like to see just such a document so that it is not accused of political bias. MPs-some of them, maybe many of them-may have a natural conflict of interest because they are suspected by NABU of corruption or abuse of power or other things, so I don't believe that we can get an objective assessment within the walls of the parliament. This should be entrusted to an independent body whose reputation we can trust.
I really hope that everyone will draw the right conclusions, that NABU and the anti-corruption structure will survive after the purge, but for us as a state and taxpayers, the key question is how these law enforcement agencies that we have created will function in the future. This is a huge drain on the state's resources, and it tears a lot of people away from the economy. Therefore, I believe that this is a road to nowhere, it is better to do it during the war, without waiting - to reform the entire law enforcement block. Because as it exists, it has no right to continue working.
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In April, the NABU and the SAPO served suspicion on Mykola Solskyi for events that took place seven years ago, when he was neither a minister nor a member of the Verkhovna Rada. The case of the anti-corruption activists concerns a dispute over land plots in Sumy region, which, according to the investigation, allegedly belonged to the National Agrarian Academy but were privatized by ATO participants, to whom Solsky allegedly provided legal assistance. In order for the anti-corruption accusations to be confirmed, they first need to prove that the land really belonged to the NAAS, but there is no such data or official documents.
The case is, as they say, "sewn with white threads"; NABU detectives and SAPO prosecutors cannot provide evidence of their version. Moreover, it became known that the investigation tried to "leak" the examination, which apparently testified to Solsky's innocence. However, the public accusations had their effect: the Poles used a formal reason to withdraw from negotiations with Ukraine on unblocking the borders, and Solsky resigned from his post as minister. Some experts believe that such a move by Poland was premeditated and that the Solski case coincided with the demarche of the Poles, who are rapidly increasing their exports to Belarus.