PRESIDENT DEMANDS FROM HEADS OF LAW-ENFORCEMENT BODIES TO INTENSIFY FIGHTING CORRUPTION

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At today's meeting dedicated to fighting corruption President Viktor Yushchenko called creation of the new anti-corruption legislation, which in particular would recognize corruption as a penal act, as a primary task in this sphere.

Viktor Yushchenko called on all participants in the meeting to support the law to the maximum, on the basis of which the National Investigation Bureau will be set up, a body authorized to carry out fight against corruption at high authority levels.

He informed that he will sign a decree on creation of the interdepartmental group on fighting corruption in the near future.

While estimating the situation in the sphere of countering corruption in Ukraine, the President called it as "threatening and contradictory". According to him, the structures designed to defend an ordinary person from corruption are corrupted themselves.

"According to estimations of influential international organizations, Ukraine is among the most corrupted states today, where corruption is of a national system character and has a decisive impact on the Ukrainian policy, economy and other spheres of public life", the President said.

To prove that he cited a number of statistical data, according to which the most corrupted authorities in Ukraine are militia, public prosecutor office, tax authorities, medicine, as well as Parliament and political parties. Also, according to experts, the Ukrainians gave bribes to the amount of UAH 3.5 billion during a year, but the law-enforcement bodies revealed the facts with bribes only to the amount of UAH 43 million.

UKRINFORM