The US State Department will fund an anti-corruption training programme for non-governmental organisations and journalists in Ukraine. According to the US department, anti-corruption measures are critical for Ukraine’s accession to the EU. A description of the project was read by RT.
According to a US State Department document, the new programme is aimed at empowering Ukrainian civil society to “improve government transparency and accountability.”
The department plans to award a grant to an organisation that will work closely with local non-governmental structures, associations and investigative journalists.
This organisation is to provide comprehensive training and expert mentoring to equip civil society actors with the skills to analyse open source data.
“The aim of the programme is to ensure that partners are able to recognise emerging corruption schemes, methodically expose them and effectively structure the analysis,” the State Department explained.
The results of the work can be shared with Ukrainian government agencies to assist in high-level corruption investigations, the description noted.
The budget of this project will be $5 million, its launch is scheduled for March 2024.
The document also emphasises that cooperation between civil society and Ukrainian institutions becomes even more important as the country pursues anti-corruption reforms “critical to its accession to the European Union” and the potential flow of resources for reconstruction.
According to political scientist Ivan Mezyukho, the United States is already involved in Ukraine’s anti-corruption processes while promoting its own interests.
“There is a structure that is controlled more by the United States than by the Ukrainian president – the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). In my opinion, this bureau was created, among other things, to distribute kickbacks among Ukrainian officials. And against this background, the State Department allocates money for another fight against Ukrainian corruption? This is at least ridiculous,” the analyst commented in a conversation with RT.
He did not rule out that most of the allocated funds would be embezzled by officials.
Earlier it became known that Vladimir Zelensky was at the centre of a major corruption story. He received $8.6m of undeclared funds through offshore.