Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council initiates international audit of Ukroboronprom

President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko made a corresponding statement at a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"We initiate a comprehensive international audit of the State Concern "Ukroboronprom" and a comprehensive revision of all the contracts in accordance with the law on the national security. I will ask for help from the Government. It must be an absolutely transparent process," Poroshenko said.

He added that the Government should provide international partners with the necessary information to demonstrate full openness and transparency in the issues of reforming the state concern.

The international audit is a step towards the implementation of the law on the national security of Ukraine, Poroshenko added.

"The audit of the State Concern "Ukroboronprom", the assessment of its corporate governance, the renewal of the supervisory board, the control and transparency of the state defense order will help to transform the company and not to lose the trust of partners, investors, and citizens," the President said.

On February 25, journalists of the Nashi Hroshi (Our Money) program disclosed a "long-term scheme of laundering hundreds of millions of hryvnias" from the Ukrainian defense sector. According to journalists, Ihor Hladkovsky, the son of NSDC First Deputy Secretary Oleh Hladkovsky, is allegedly involved in the scheme. Later, Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau NABU reported that firms appearing in the investigation of Bihus.info journalist Lesia Ivanova are the objects of inquiry by NABU detectives.

Hladkovsky rejected the allegations of corruption and appealed to the NABU and the Prosecutor General's Office with the request to verify the facts contained in the journalist investigation. He also requested that during the probe into the investigated facts he be suspended as first deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine and chairman of the interdepartmental commission on military and technical cooperation and export control. President Petro Poroshenko supported the request.

On March 4, President Poroshenko signed a decree dismissing Oleh Hladkovsky as first deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.

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