Your article on the importance of addressing corruption in post-conflict Ukraine is right to identify the judiciary, transparency and civil society as key components, along with the importance of political will (As well as fighting Russia, Ukrainians are battling corruption at home, 16 June).
To add a further note of encouragement: in 2016, Ukraine put into place a world-leading online procurement system, ProZorro, specifically designed to combat corruption. By introducing extensive transparency into healthcare procurement, the country opened the entire process to public scrutiny and significantly reduced its public healthcare bill – as funds were spent on competitive healthcare procurement and not lining the pockets of market-rigging oligarchs. In other words, Ukraine already has some of the building blocks and experience in place for the time when donor funds are committed to reconstruction.
Meanwhile, in the wake of the UK’s Covid PPE procurement fiasco, the post-Brexit procurement bill has still not passed through parliament as the government considers whether to back away from some of its initial commitments to adopt international best practice.
Prof Robert Barrington
Centre for the Study of Corruption, University of Sussex
