Oleksandr Klymenko appointed SAPO head. This position was vacant for 2 years

The new Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin has appointed Oleksandr Klymenko as the head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, announced the head of the President's Office, Andriy Yermak.

According to him, Klymenko was appointed on July 28. On July 27, the Parliament appointed Andriy Kostin as the new Prosecutor General. He replaced Irina Venediktova, who was dismissed on July 19.

Who is Klymenko?

He graduated from the Yaroslav Mudryi National Law Academy in Kharkiv. Since 2010, he worked as an investigator in Kyiv, in particular, he investigated embezzlement at Ukrzaliznytsia.

In 2016, Klymenko became a prosecutor at the National Anti-Corruption Bureau. According to former Bureau director Artem Sytnyk, Klymenko was one of the most productive employees.

He took part in the investigation into the deputy head of the President's Office Oleh Tatarov, ex-head of the State Fiscal Service Roman Nasirov, ex-deputy Oleksandr Onishchenko, and former deputy secretary of the NSDC Oleg Gladkovsky.

Background

The competition commission for the election of the head of the SAPO could not approve the results of the competition for more than half a year. In the end, it was done on July 19. Oleksandr Klymenko, the detective of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, who has now become the head of the SAPO, scored the most points, and Andriy Syniuk took second place and is to become the deputy head.

The day before, on July 27, the competition commission announced that it had received a response from the Prosecutor General's Office that the finalists of the selection meet the requirements of the laws on government cleansing.

The previous head of SAPO, Nazar Kholodnytskyi, resigned in August 2020. For two years, the body did not have its permanent head, Maksym Hryshchuk was acting as anti-corruption prosecutor.

Why is this important?

On June 23, the European Council granted Ukraine the status of a candidate for EU membership. Now, in order to start negotiations on accession, Ukraine must fulfill a number of recommendations of the European Commission.

Among the necessary steps is the further strengthening of the fight against corruption, primarily among high-ranking officials, as well as the completion of the selection and appointment of a new director of NABU and the head of the SAPO.

The European Union is currently waiting for the next steps of the Ukrainian authorities in this matter and believes that currently Ukraine does not need historical innovations and that everything necessary can be implemented during the war. And the appointment of the head of SAPO was called the easiest.