The Ukrainian parliament has taken into account the President’s wish and passed the law on electronic declaration of officials’ incomes. The amendments to the law are agreed with the EU within the framework of the visa-free dialogue. Starting from April, officials will have to fill in the detailed electronic form by declaring their incomes.
There are 278 MPs who voted for passing the draft law No. 3755. The information on who and how voted is available on the link. It is interesting that MPs Serhiy Leshchenko and Mustafa Nayem were absent during the voting.
The law on electronic declaration was passed last year, though the MPs postponed its launch by 2017 after the adoption of the state budget for 2016. The Parliament declined this standard, which, in fact, emptied the law – it postponed the criminal responsibility for false data and foresaw a number of opportunities to conceal incomes. The European Union, in response, postponed the visa-free regime for Ukraine. In the result, Poroshenko vetoed that law and agreed on the amendments in the document with the EU.
According to these amendments, the criminal responsibility for concealing incomes comes into force since 1 April 2016, although, only if the stated data differ from the factual in the amount exceeding 250 minimum living wages, i.e. 344, 450 hryvnyas (13,211 dollars).
The law also presupposes, besides the imprisonment for two years, a fine from 2,500 to 3,500 personal tax exemption limits (one such limit equals 17 hryvnyas or 0,65 dollars) or public works from 150 to 240 hours.
As reported before, one more requirement of the EU for the visa-free regime is the launch of the National Agency for Corruption Prevention, whose main task will be to check officials’ property.