Officials who lie in their declarations have no place in the civil service, so the acting deputy head of the State Tax Service should be dismissed - expert
Kyiv • UNN
Advanter Group CEO Andriy Dligach calls for the replacement of the leadership of the tax and customs authorities, including acting Deputy Head of the State Tax Service Yevhen Sokur. He emphasizes the need to clean up the situation with people who provide false information in their declarations.
The leadership of the tax and customs authorities needs to be replaced, including those who provide false information in their declarations. Acting Deputy Head of the State Tax Service Yevhen Sokur has no place in this position. This opinion was expressed in an exclusive commentary to UNN by Andriy Dligach, Chairman of Advanter Group, co-founder of the Center for Economic Recovery.
Context
Earlier , UNN reported that the acting deputy head of the State Tax Service, Yevhen Sokur, had allegedly entered inaccurate data in his 2023 declaration. In particular, he did not indicate in the document the information about his partner. During the investigation into the alleged assassination attempt, Sokur himself told law enforcement officers that since 2016 he had been living with a girl named Alina in an apartment at 6-D Lobanovskoho Avenue. Following a deputy appeal from Nina Yuzhanina, a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy, the NACP launched an investigation into Yevhen Sokur . In response to a request from UNN, the Agency also confirmed that it was conducting monitoring. The head of the Public Council at the NACP, Kateryna Butko, noted that the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption is checking whether Sokur and his partner Alina had a common life.
Of course, people who provide false information about themselves or their relatives violate the declaration rules in general - they should not be in public service and should be held accountable, it is obvious
He added that the fact that the leadership of the customs and tax authorities has not been reloaded, they have been in the status of acting for years, and the bodies are managed “through the power vertical” is an unacceptable situation.
“That's why we are now insisting on clearing both the tax and customs offices on the principles similar to those that are currently being launched for BES,” Dligach said.
At the same time, he emphasized that the lack of trust in key government agencies directly affects the willingness of foreign partners to invest in Ukraine.
It is absolutely clear that if trust in the government is low, there will be no investment, no development, no nothing. Trust in the government begins first and foremost with personalities. It starts with the fact that there should be people in power who are clear, crystal clear, and professional. And Sokur definitely cannot remain in this position
Add
As it turned out, on April 21, 2022, the State Tax Service appealed to the NACP with a request to conduct a monitoring check on Yevhen Sokur. The monitoring did not take place due to martial law declared because of Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the tax office could not but know that there would be no inspection.
Interestingly, in April 2022, Yevhen Sokur was selected for the position of head of the Economic Analysis Department of the State Tax Service, but the former assistant to the head of the Rada's tax committee, Danylo Hetmantsev, failed the competition. On April 18, 2022, Maryna Baryakhtar was announced the winner of the selection, who, according to media reports, refused to take the position three days later. In other words, she actually gave way to Sokur, whom the media call Hetmantsev's right-hand man at the tax office. At the time, Sokur, who had not worked at the State Tax Service for a day, needed this position as an intermediate step to the position of acting deputy head of the State Tax Service of Ukraine. After all, just two weeks later, on May 7, he received this leadership position. It is possible that there was an agreement with Barakhtyar, as she did not leave the STS to take the position of Director of the Risk Management Department.
According to media reports, it was in 2022 that acting Deputy Head of the Tax Service Sokur used a zero declaration and indicated UAH 2.5 million, the legal origin of which he would not otherwise have been able to explain to the inspectors. This means that he had actually concealed them from the tax authorities and would probably not have passed the audit if the NACP had conducted monitoring.
Recall
Earlier, UNN reported that the attempted assassination of the acting deputy head of the State Tax Service of Ukraine, Yevhen Sokur, raises many questions about its authenticity. It could have been stagedto divert attention from the criminal proceedings against Sokur for abuse of office.
