In the 10 years since the creation of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, it has totally disappointed Ukrainians: it has spent many times more money on its activities than it has recovered from corrupt officials. At the same time, its leadership and detectives have become so mired in scandals that even anti-corruption activists consider it appropriate to disband the NABU. The Bureau fought corruption so hard that it did not notice how it became part of it, - assessed the activities of the NABU political expert, lawyer Mykhailo Shnayder, writes UNIAN, reports UNN.
62.3% of Ukrainians do not trust the National Anti-Corruption Bureau. This is roughly what 10 years of anti-corruption reform look like: the NABU has gone from the hope of Ukrainians for cleansing from corruption to a district police station with flies and drug trafficking. The legal community has repeatedly spoken out on this issue: the Bureau needs to be disbanded, because there will be no results with this Bureau. The NABU fought corruption so hard that it did not notice how it became part of it
He cited 10 anti-achievements of the Bureau during its existence. First of all, the state spends much more money on NABU than it receives as a result of investigations. Expenses are 2.2 times higher than the profit received: in 2024, the state budget spent UAH 1.874 billion on the maintenance of NABU, while the Bureau's activities led to the return of only ... UAH 823 million from corrupt officials, the expert noted.
He also reminded that the first head of the Bureau, Artem Sytnyk, is an official corrupt official, through whom the United States accused Ukraine of interfering in their elections. In addition, the current head of NABU, Semen Kryvonos, has an official criminal record, and his wife was caught serving a criminal authority, Schneider said.
In general, he stressed, contrary to the requirements of the law, no audit of NABU has been conducted in 10 years, and the Bureau itself has never reported to Ukrainians in the Verkhovna Rada.
Among other anti-achievements noted by the expert are the escape to Romania of a NABU detective who had ties to Russia and big problems with loans; the exposure of a NABU representative for the production and sale of amphetamines and other drugs; the leaking of investigations into abuses in the procurement of drones for the Armed Forces of Ukraine; the coercion of witnesses into intimate relations by detectives; helping relatives of criminals escape responsibility; the inclusion of NABU on the board of shame by anti-corruption organizations.
According to the expert, the tenth anniversary of NABU passes quietly and unnoticed, unlike the time when the Bureau started.
There are no reports in the media. There are no laudatory assessments. It's sad, like at a wake. The structure created in 2015 to the applause of public activists, on which so much hope was placed, is quietly fading away. Those who went to kill the dragon became the dragon themselves. There are more and more scandals, and successes are not noticeable even under a microscope