Ukrainian NSDC decision on economic security may help settle problems in business-authorities relations - Zelensky
MOSCOW. Jan 24 (Interfax) - The Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council's decision on urgent measures to ensure economic security amid martial law should help resolve the entire set of problems affecting relations between the business community and the authorities, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said.
"We have clearly defined steps that should help businesspeople and government agencies to settle the entire set of problems of which there has been a lot of talk over the past weeks," Ukraine media quoted Zelensky as saying in a video address.
To this end, a council for the support of entrepreneurial activities will be set up, which will include business community representatives, he said.
"These are well-known names, top managers of Ukrainian companies. Businesses that are working for millions of people. Technology business, finances, services, and other sectors. Various sectors, so that there should be various views, but the same goal of strengthening our economy and our society," he said.
The NSDC's decision also implies absolute clarity with regard to law enforcement agencies, Zelensky said. In particular, the government is supposed to propose amendments to the law on economic security bureau and some other laws so as to minimize chances for any possible pressure on legal businesses, he said.
The NSDC also set a three-month moratorium on conducting procedural actions that may block a business entity's operations.
Zelensky also vowed that the system monitoring tax invoice risks would be audited.
"The state will honor its part of a moral contract with the business community. It is also important for every businessperson in Ukraine to honor their part of the agreements: businesses must pay taxes and work legally," he said.
According to Ukrainian media, a presidential decree on urgent measures to ensure economic security was published on the presidential website on Tuesday evening.
The NSDC recommended that the president institute a council for supporting entrepreneurial activities amid martial law. It instructed the government to urgently submit to the parliament bills to strengthen the functions of the Economic Security Bureau and designate it as the sole law enforcement body authorized to deal with offences jeopardizing the national economy.
Zelensky put the NSDC's decision into effect the same day by signing a decree published on the presidential website.
The decree instructs the government to submit to the parliament amendments to the Ukrainian Criminal Procedure Code and to the laws on investigative activities, on basic principles of state financial control in Ukraine, and on organizational legal foundations for countering organized crime to provide extra guarantees for protecting legitimate business interests during criminal proceedings.
The law on defense procurement must be amended to cap profit for state contracts implemented during martial law.
The government is instructed to audit the system for monitoring risks and criteria for blocking tax invoices, as well as procedures and criteria for unblocking them.
The NSDC recommended that the Prosecutor General's Office, the State Bureau of Investigations, the National Police, the Economic Security Bureau, and the Security Service audit within three months the restrictive measures taken with regard to business entities as part of criminal proceedings, analyze their reasonability, and decide whether the information on them on public electronic databases is still relevant. The NSDC also recommended that they refrain from conducting criminal procedures that may block entrepreneurial activities for three months.
These agencies are also advised to urgently audit the registered criminal proceedings into criminal offences potentially jeopardizing the national economy's functioning and, based on the audit's findings, to work out efficient mechanisms for protecting entrepreneurial activities from possible abuses by law enforcement agencies.
The Prosecutor General's Office, the Digital Transformation Ministry, and the Justice Ministry have been asked to develop an analytical module within the Unified Register of Pretrial Investigations to ensure public access to integrated analytical data concerning law enforcement agencies' actions, as well as a module enabling businesspeople to submit their complaints online.
As reported, the Manifest 42 association of businesses urged the president in mid-December to draw up and submit to the parliament two bills. One of these bills should impose a moratorium on asset freezes and raids by law enforcement and security services during martial law, with the exception of cases affecting national security. Another bill should empower lawyers with additional instruments to defend businesspeople against whom criminal inquiries have been opened and restrict law enforcement agencies' ability to exceed their powers.
The business community also insisted that the authorities have still not kept their promise they gave last summer to consolidate law enforcement functions in countering economic crimes at the Economic Security Bureau, along with its rearrangement.