Medical and Social Assessment Boards to be disbanded from 31 December – Zelenskyy enacts National Security Council decision

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has issued a decree on the disbanding of Medical and Social Assessment Boards (MSABs) starting from 31 December 2024, following a meeting of the National Security and Defence Council on 22 October .

Source: decree on the website of the President's Office

Details: The document recommends that the Prosecutor General's Office, the Security Service of Ukraine, the State Bureau of Investigation, the National Police of Ukraine and the National Anticorruption Bureau (NABU) submit reports within a month on the measures taken to identify violations in the process of establishing disability for officials. Following such inspections, these bodies are to make decisions on staffing.

The Cabinet of Ministers has been instructed to take the following steps: to set up working groups to review the decisions made by the MSABs on establishing whether officials have a disability; to report on the results of the MSABs’ inspections within three months; to prepare a plan to implement digitalisation of all stages of the MSABs’ processes together with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Digital Transformation and conduct an audit of the calculation of pension payments to officials together with the Pension Fund, the State Bureau of Investigation, the Security Service of Ukraine and the National Police.

It is recommended that the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament), together with the Ministry of Health, develop a draft law on reforming the medical and social assessment system within a month providing, in particular, for the disbanding of Medical and Social Assessment Boards from 31 December 2024.

It is recommended that the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption check and update a study of the top 10 corruption risks involved in the medical and social assessment for establishing disability by 30 November this year.

The document also provides for amendments to the Criminal Code of Ukraine that would make the chair and members of MSABs subject to criminal liability for illicit enrichment.

The decree came into force on 22 October.

Update: In his evening address, Zelenskyy stated that in order to achieve significant transformation, all stages of the process of establishing disability must be completely digitalised.

Quote: "There must be personal accountability and staffing decisions based on this situation in the central authorities – with vertical control of the MSABs.

The decision by the National Security and Defence Council now provides for a full audit of pensions and other accruals for all officials who have ‘arranged’ disability status for themselves."

Details: In May 2023, Ukraine's Minister of Health Viktor Liashko announced that medical and social assessment boards will cease to exist from 1 January 2025.

Background:

• On 2 October, the SSU (Security Service of Ukraine) exposed Vira Beliakova, the Head of the Mykolaiv Oblast Medical Enquiry Service, on corruption schemes related to military draft evasion. During searches, the SSU found more than US$450,000 in cash and a collection of jewellery that Beliakova was hiding at different addresses.
• On 4 October, the office of Tetiana Krupa, Head of the Khmelnytskyi Oblast Medical and Social Assessment Board, was searched. Law enforcement officers found US$100,000, medical documents displaying signs of forgery, and lists of "draft dodgers" with names and fictitious diagnoses in her office. At her home, the SSU seized USS5,244,000; EUR 300,000; more than UAH 5,000,000; branded jewellery, as well as documents that may indicate money laundering through various business projects. During the investigation, the head of the MSAB tried to get rid of some of the money by throwing two bags with half a million dollars out of the window
• Journalists uncovered that 49 prosecutors from Khmelnytskyi, led by oblast prosecutor Oleksii Oliinyk, obtained disability certificates from Tetiana Krupa, the Head of the Medical and Social Assessment Board and an oblast council member from the Servant of the People, the ruling party.
• In the city of Rivne, law enforcement officers discovered a large-scale draft evasion scheme via the MSAB, which was organised by the head of an estate agency along with medical workers. During over 50 searches, medical documents and money totalling UAH 14.5 million (approx. US$350,805) in various currencies were seized from suspects and health professionals in Rivne.
• Law enforcement officers exposed the head of Kharkiv’s MSAB, who, along with 12 accomplices, furnished men with fraudulent documents in exchange for US$2,000-US$5,000 to avoid conscription. Law enforcement officers performed 89 searches, seizing documents, draft records, mobile phones, computer equipment, and more than US$500,000, over €80,000, more than UAH 1 million (approx. US$24,193), as well as Russian roubles.

This news has been updated since publication.

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