{"id":27777,"date":"2023-04-28T12:39:44","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T12:39:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/new-bodies-aim-to\/"},"modified":"2023-04-28T12:44:49","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T12:44:49","slug":"new-bodies-aim-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/new-bodies-aim-to\/","title":{"rendered":"New bodies aim to boost Ukraine defence ministry&#8217;s efficiency, transparency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>KYIV (Reuters) &#8211;     Two new advisory bodies will help make Ukraine&#8217;s defence ministry more efficient and transparent, Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>The Office for the Support of Changes and the Public Anti-Corruption Council were set up earlier this month following allegations that the ministry bought food for troops at inflated prices.<\/p>\n<p>The ministry has also received heavy weaponry from Western allies as Kyiv prepares to launch a counteroffensive against Russian forces after 14 months of war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Today is a time for reform, even during this war,&#8221; Reznikov told an online briefing.<\/p>\n<p>Reznikov said the Office for the Support of Changes had been tasked with &#8220;thinking out of the box&#8221; to propose institutional changes, including on the procurement of non-lethal resources.<\/p>\n<p>The Public Anti-Corruption Council contained people who were publicly elected by thousands of voters, he said. It will monitor potential corruption risks at the ministry.<\/p>\n<p>Ukraine has stepped up efforts to tackle graft as it seeks accession to the European Union. <\/p>\n<p>A former deputy defence minister and another ministry official have been served with &#8220;notices of suspicion&#8221; over wrongdoing involving contracts for food purchases for the army, the state anti-corruption agency said last week.<\/p>\n<p>Reznikov said in February that hundreds of officials at the defence ministry or in the armed forces had been disciplined last year after internal audits, and that he had &#8220;zero tolerance&#8221; for corruption.<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p> (Reporting by Dan Peleschuk, Editing by Timothy Heritage)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/new-bodies-aim-to\/file-photo-ukrainian-defence-minister-reznikov-holds-a-news-conference\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportWorldNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3R0LO-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3R0LO-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KYIV (Reuters) &#8211; Two new advisory bodies will help make Ukraine&#8217;s defence ministry more efficient and transparent, Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Friday. The Office for the Support of Changes and the Public Anti-Corruption Council were set up earlier this month following allegations that the ministry bought food for troops at inflated prices. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":27778,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1222],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-27777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-world-news","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportWorldNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3R0LO-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27779,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27777\/revisions\/27779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}