The procedure for selecting declarations for NACP’s full audit: novelties and challenges

Every year, from 600 to 900 thousand declarations are submitted to the Unified State Register of Declarations of Persons Authorized to Perform State or Local Governance Functions. Meanwhile, only 27 employees of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) are responsible for conduction the full audit of these declarations. In such circumstances, the question of methodology under which the NACP selects declarations for full audit comes to the fore. Prior to the full-scale invasion on Ukrainian territory, national legislation had several provisions that defined the procedure for selecting declarations for full audit. The selection system in place at the time resulted in most full audits being conducted only on a very limited number of top officials. During martial law, in September 2023 - June 2024 the system of selecting declarations for full audit was significantly changed. Inter alia, the NACP adopted three new Procedures to regulate these issues. According to the updated regulations, all submitted declarations undergo a computerized risk assessment, after which declarations with the lowest risk are sent for automated audit, and the declarations with the highest risk are selected for full audit according to four levels of priority. While the new system of selection is certainly a significant step forward, it is not without drawbacks. Firstly, it involves unreasonable concealment of the rules of logical and arithmetic control (LAC) from the public, i.e. the criteria by which the NACP calculates the risk rating of each submitted declaration. Secondly, the institution of automated audit introduced in November 2023 is currently of low practical value and in some cases may even hinder the effective selection of declarations for full audit. To address these shortcomings, the NACP is recommended to make the LAC rules publicly available and provide an opportunity for their public discussion, as well as to abandon the mechanism of automated audit in the form in which it currently exists.