Civil Society Unites to Fight Corruption UNITER continues to expand their efforts and vigilance to work toward transparency
The participants of the “President, don’t sell yourself!” action use portraits of Members of Parliament who voted for the bill to lay out the slogan “Bill №7532 – corruption!” in front of the Presidential Administration.
Using Organizational Network Analysis (ONA), the methodology widely used by Pact, the participants of the session analyzed their cooperation and defined the ways to strengthen their network. “We need more joint action,” Oleksiy Khmara, the president of TORO, summarized.
Each year, approximately $7.5 billion is inefficiently spent in the Ukraine due to the drawbacks of the public procurement system and the lack of an independent system of control of the course of tenders. Moreover, the situation could be further deteriorated by the adoption of bill 7532 introduced at the end of 2010, whose amendments would decrease the transparency of public procurement. However, the Ukrainian civil society decided not to stand back. In February 2011, “Creative Union TORO,” UNITER partner and the contact group of “Transparency International” in Ukraine initiated the establishment of the Civic Alliance “for the integrity of public procurement in Ukraine." The Alliance united non-governmental organizations (NGOs), analytical centers, business organizations, and individual members in order to facilitate transparency and integrity of public procurement. Since the very beginning, the Alliance has been in the vanguard of changes in procurement. On February 22, they made their first public statement and presented an open petition against the approval of bill 7532, addressing the amendments which were not compatible with the international standards. Over fifty copies of the petition were mailed out to all Ukrainian senior government officials, as well as the representatives of the European Union and World Bank. Furthermore, in May, the Alliance, partnered with the UNITER-supported New Citizen Initiative, held a public action “President, don’t sell yourself!” demanding the President to veto the bill. In June, together with New Citizen Platform and Civic Expert Council, both UNITER partners, the Alliance submitted a letter to the President of Ukraine, suggesting six specific amendments and clarifications. Additionally, in July, they addressed the President of Ukraine, the Prime Minister, and the Minister of Health with an open letter, highlighting the misuse of funds allocated for timely procurement of medicaments. As a result of the Alliance activities, the President added a range of the amendments proposed by NGOs to the final version of the law. Nevertheless, the Alliance members are going to further increase their vigilance in order to ensure the transparency of public procurement.