Lutsenko says SBI will start operating in 2018

He stated this at a briefing on Friday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"The SBI will start operating in full force at the end of next year," he said.

Lutsenko said that the Verkhovna Rada could speed up the selection of SBI employees by adopting a respective bill.

"I know that the parliament is discussing a bill that may speed up [the selection of] SBI employees, so that newly elected leaders could independently recruit their personnel, of course, through tests, through competitions, and, if needed, through the lie detector. This may reduce the period of the institution's creation from one year to six months, perhaps to seven or eight months," the prosecutor general said.

Lutsenko also recalled that according to the legislation, the number of employees from the old system in the SBI could not exceed 30%.

On November 16, the competition commission elected Roman Truba as SBI director, Olha Varchenko as his first deputy, and Oleksandr Buriak as his deputy. Now the Cabinet of Ministers and the president should approve Truba's candidacy as SBI director. After that, he will be able to sign orders appointing Varchenko and Buriak as deputy heads.

op