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KIEV (Reuters) - During the day, Andrew Sherepenko builds IT systems for hotels in the United States. In his spare time, he’s trying to put Ukraine’s corruption fight on track.
Ukraine’s Western-backed leaders promised reforms to clamp down on corruption when they came to power in 2014 after street protests toppled a pro-Russia president. Foreign donors tied billions of dollars of aid to the success of the reforms.
But four years later, corruption remains rife and the latest tranche of International Monetary Fund lending is on hold because of delays in implementing the reforms.
Now, civic activists like 28-year-old software engineer Sherepenko are increasingly taking up the slack. Though lacking resources, they are trying to provide some of the oversight of business and political leaders that the government does not.
Programming before work, and on trains and planes while on holiday, Sherepenko helped create a publicly accessible online tool for a non-governmental organisation that calls itself Anti-Corruption Headquarter.
Using data taken from open sources, the “Hidden Interests” software can identify possible conflicts of interest by checking political leaders’ decisions or voting records against a list of companies or organisations linked to them or their relatives.
The data showed 423 lawmakers have ties directly or through family to about 5,500 companies or organisations. As a result, seven possible instances of illegal activity on a regional level have been identified and the authorities have been alerted.
“The system (in Ukraine) is sick,” Sherepenko, who lives and works in the capital Kiev, told Reuters by telephone, accusing the government of not being interested in change.
“The only way to change something is through NGOs and people in the country, and with international support.”
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