SAPO head: Govt has the will to fight petty corruption, but no demand to fight high-level corruption
The government has the political will to combat petty corruption, but there is no demand from the government to combat corruption among senior government officials, according to Oleksandr Klymenko, head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO).
"Regarding pressure, the key thing I think is ... The political authorities have the political will to fight corruption at the everyday level. That's why we're successfully digitizing many processes where society encounters corruption ... But there's no demand or political will from the highest levels of our government to fight high-level corruption in the country," Klymenko said in Kyiv on Wednesday during the international conference "Movement Through Resistance: How the Anti-Corruption System Works," organized by the online publication Ukrainska Pravda.
According to the head of the SAPO, this is precisely why there is a certain resistance to the implementation of mechanisms aimed at strengthening the fight against high-level corruption.
Responding to the question of whether the independence of anti-corruption bodies can be maintained, Klymenko said: "Do we have a chance? We have a fairly good chance. The main thing is that the focus of society and international partners remains strong. Then we will have a chance of victory."
