The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) announced its intention to purchase 187 laptops for a total of UAH 7.5 million, which is about UAH 40,000 for each device. This decision caused a discussion in society, given the significant costs of technical equipment.
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine plans to purchase laptops for its employees for almost 7.5 million hryvnias. The order was divided into two lots: the first for 102 computers, and the second for 85. This is evidenced by data on the Prozorro website.
The expected cost of the tender was more than 10 million hryvnias, but "Portal Arena" LLC offered to supply laptops to NABU for almost 7.5 million hryvnias.
As you know, NABU plans to hire about 300 employees over the course of three years, most of them detectives and analysts. In 2024, only the first stage of this selection continues.
Even if in 2024 NABU recruited a third of the announced vacancies, i.e. 100 new employees, they still do not need two laptops each. Therefore, there are doubts about the expediency of such a large amount of new equipment.
NABU also wants to purchase air conditioners with heating for almost 1.3 million hryvnias, while the authorities and international organizations are warning of an extremely difficult energy situation this winter. In addition, the bureau will spend over 50,000 hryvnias on the purchase of three portable weather stations.
The budget, which is spent on maintaining anti-corruption bodies, is also impressive in terms of numbers. The costs of NABU, SAP and VAKS for the entire period of their existence amount to approximately 12-13 billion hryvnias. At the same time, the budgetary appetites of anti-corruption bodies are growing every year. All this is paid by taxpayers, for whom another increase in fees has already been prepared.
At the same time, there are still big questions about the effectiveness of anti-corruption bodies. Foreign experts have identified a number of problems in the report based on the results of the NABU activity assessment. In particular, the auditors concluded that detectives need to communicate with psychologists and the ombudsman to report problems in the workplace.
In addition, international auditors stated that the VAKS examines cases for years, while NABU detectives can investigate them for decades. However, as practice shows, the duration of the anti-corruption investigation does not affect its quality in any way, because "high-profile" NABU cases against high-ranking officials have repeatedly collapsed in the courts.
