News

Statement by J. Grossmann, MSI Chief of Party and Dr. L. Palyvoda, Deputy Chief of Party

June 3, 2009. Kyiv, Ukraine

Cabinet of Ministers hasn’t yet given its permit for publishing second report of GRECO regarding Ukraine approved in May, 2009. The President of this organization Drago Kos in his interview to “Dzerkalo tyzhnya” informed about this.

International civil rights organization Transparency International has launched a new Global Barometer, where Ukraine placed the last among the New Independent States with an index of 4.3 index.

It is evident from the letter, which TORO received in the beginning of June from the Criminality and Corruption fight Committee of the Verhovna Rada.

Mr. Oleksandr Ryabeka, head of the human rights observance, interaction with public and other organizations subcommittee stated in his letter that the Criminality and Corruption fight Committee of the Verhovna Rada supports TORO’s anticorruption initiatives and invites the organization to cooperation. At present TORO decides on the best format of cooperation with the special Committee of the Verhovna Rada.

During 2 months there was correspondence between Kirov district council and TORO concerning cooperation of the latter with the representatives of block committees of Kirov district. As a result TORO got the opportunity to take part on 27 May, 2009 in the monthly meeting of the heads of block committees.

On April 1 TORO team organized a meeting with the representatives of block committees for conducting another seminar. Though in some countries people celebrate day of humor on this day by making jokes on their close people and relatives, the topic of the seminar “Building effective cooperation of self-organization organs with the authorities” was not for fun. The topic of cooperation is very urgent for the representatives of the “people’s powers”. Probably each of us during solving issues in governmental structures faced bureaucracy of this system. But the representatives of block committees have to solve issues and protect rights of those who live in their territory much more often.

Such a conclusion can be made from the reply letter, which TORO got from Kirovohrad regional state administration. In the letter signed by the head of the apparatus of regional state administration Tetyana Dmytrenko the following was written: “…proposals (prepared by TORO in the matter of enforcing corruption counteraction in Kirovohrad region), are of urgent character, namely as for conducting seminars, open-door days, placing anti corruption placards in the buildings of local executive authorities, will be fulfilled by the apparatus of regional state administration while conducting complex checking of the work of structure departments of regional state administration, district administrations in the matter of prevention corruption, providing practical recommendations as for its improvement”.

Around 40 public activists decided to put an end to the negative influence of financial crisis. On February 27 they left their offices and working places in order to unite together with media, trade union and authority representatives for the protection of Kirovohrad community interests. As a result, normal schedule of the art museum was disturbed, as it was the spot where the conference "Consolidation of actions of CSOs of Kirovohrad region: recipes from the crisis" took place. Community activists of the region made a first joint step towards overcoming crisis at this conference.

Deputy Head of Kirovohrad regional state administration Tetyana Dmytrenko and representatives of TORO Oleksiy Khmara and Alla Voloshyna agreed upon this during the meeting on the 19^th of February.