Head of the Office of the President Andriy Yermak held a regular meeting of the Ukrainian working group to develop proposals for Ukraine's participation in the OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions.
Andriy Yermak said that an official letter from the OECD has already been received, confirming that Ukraine has been granted the status of a member of the OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions. The President's Office has worked on the letter in response together with the Cabinet of Ministers, and it will soon be officially submitted to the OECD Secretary-General for ratification of the relevant agreement between the OECD and Ukraine.
"We are well aware that the status of a member of the OECD Working Group on Bribery is the first step towards our country's membership in the OECD. Therefore, we must work even harder to obtain this status as soon as possible. As a state, we must have effective and efficient mechanisms to fight corruption," emphasized Andriy Yermak.
He noted that membership in the OECD Working Group on Bribery would be an additional factor in the transparency and accountability of Ukraine's post-war reconstruction.
As the Head of the Presidential Office emphasized, we can’t stop once Ukraine becomes a member of the working group, so a clear plan for further steps to join the OECD should be developed in advance.
"I would like to see a plan for what we, as a state, are going to do next, so that we can move forward without delay, as we have both the request to fight corruption inside the country and the support of our partners in this process," the Head of the Presidential Office said.
Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Smyrnov, for his part, noted that since the last meeting of their working group, work had been done to harmonize national legislation in line with the requirements of the OECD Working Group. In particular, they discussed the issue of legal responsibility of legal entities for bribery of a foreign official, as well as the issue of preventing the deduction of amounts related to the commission of a corruption criminal offense by a taxpayer.
"In my opinion, we held a very powerful and constructive conference of all those involved in the elaboration of liability of legal entities. All subjects of the anti-corruption bloc, the full working group, experts were involved, and initial draft amendments to the legislation were developed," said Andriy Smyrnov.
As a result, the draft law on liability for international bribery is being worked on, and legislative amendments to the Tax Code of Ukraine are in the final stages and will soon be submitted to the Parliament.
The Ministry of Economy, with the involvement of other bodies and organizations, including the Export Credit Agency, was instructed to fill out the questionnaire in March and provide the relevant materials to the Secretariat of the Working Group for processing.
It was also agreed that Ukraine would participate in a meeting of the OECD Working Group in March this year.