NABU on the way to losing independence due to personal interests - former first deputy director of the bureau Gizo Uglava
Kyiv • UNN
Former NABU deputy director Gizo Uglava said that the bureau had lost its independence due to the prevalence of personal interests over institutional ones. He expressed concern about the current state of the anti-corruption agency.
Ten years after its creation, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine is on the path to losing its independence because personal interests of individuals have begun to prevail over institutional values. This was stated by former First Deputy Director of the NABU Gizo Uglava.
On October 14, the day the law "On the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine" was adopted, Gizo Uglava expressed concern about the current state of the bureau.
10 years ago, as an international expert with extensive experience in fighting corruption and real results in this area, I was invited to join the team that developed the legislative framework for the establishment of the NABU. My tasks were to develop amendments to the legislation and an algorithm for implementing specific mechanisms that allowed NABU to become an effective institution
He emphasized that the NABU used to be based on the "three pillars" - the rule of law, independence and integrity. However, in his opinion, these values are now under threat.
"Now I am sincerely sorry that the external environment and internal processes have led to the NABU being on the path to losing its independence, and that the personal interests of individuals prevail over institutional values and hard work of many years of teamwork," the former top NABU official said.
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Gizo Uglava has been working at NABU as the first deputy director since the establishment of this anti-corruption body. He was dismissed from the bureau on September 3, 2024, with the official reason being a violation of the oath of office and rules of ethical behavior. However, Uglava filed a lawsuit demanding that the order on his dismissal be declared illegal.
It is worth noting that a few months before his dismissal, he managed to make a number of high-profile statementsthat exposed potential problems in the management and investigation processes of anti-corruption detectives.
Head accused the NABU leadership, in particular Director Semen Kryvonos, of pressuring him to resign. He also filed a complaint with the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption against the NABU director and received official whistleblower status.
The then-deputy director of the NABU repeatedly hinted that decisions in the bureau were made under the influence of external factors, not on the basis of the law. Among the individuals and institutions that he believed exerted this pressure were activists of the Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC) and the head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Anti-Corruption Policy, who, as Uglava noted, had previously worked for the AntAC.
The same opinion is supported by lawyers, who also stated that the real goal of anti-corruption activists has turned from fighting corruption to putting pressure on certain public officials to achieve "external" goals.
In addition, the lawyer community is sounding the alarm over NABU Director Semen Kryvonos' idea to create his own forensic expertise at the bureau, because "their" experts in the investigation have nothing to do with an independent investigation.
Manipulation of examinations is a common practice for NABU, but it often plays against the detectives themselves. For example, as was the case with the examinations in the cases of Rotterdam+ and former Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan. As lawyer Iryna Odynets stated, NABU lost in court because during the investigation, detectives in these cases "painted" forensic examinations in friendly private offices and then unsuccessfully tried to confirm their accusations with them. Volodymyr Omelyan himself also noted that detectives engaged "dubious experts" during the investigation of the case against him.
In addition, the NABU tried to leak the expertise in the case against former Minister of Agrarian Policy Mykola Solsky, which they themselves had ordered and which was obviously supposed to testify to his innocence.
At the moment, an external independent audit of the NABU has begun. International experts have already met with anti-corruption activists and lawyers. The latter expressed concern about the effectiveness of investigations and transparency of NABU's work.
