Head of the National Accreditation Agency Serhii Kostiuk decided to take revenge on business for opening a criminal case

Numerous disclosures and public statements by international partners do not stop Ukrainian corrupt officials from continuing to make money for themselves. Moreover, thanks to bureaucracy, nepotism and connections in the government, they have every opportunity to take revenge on complainants and whistleblowers.

As previously reported by the SUD.UA, criminal proceedings were opened against the head of the National Accreditation Agency of Ukraine (NAAU), Serhiy Kostiuk, for abuse of power. Prior to that, the business had sent numerous complaints to the Ministry of Economy, which, in fact, appointed Kostiuk to the position in December 2022 without any checks, although they should have been conducted, given that he was already involved in a corruption case. However, these statements and complaints were effectively ignored, possibly because the state secretary of the Ministry of Economy is Kostiuk's good friend Vitaliy Petruk.

Sergiy Kostiuk's reaction to the criminal case was not long in coming – he decided to take revenge and stop the applicant's activities.

The decision to suspend the company was made by NAAU after numerous complaints from the testing laboratory of GI-AVTO LLC to the National Accreditation Agency and the Ministry of Economy about the deliberate delay in the process of expanding the scope of accreditation, which were never properly considered, because NAAU sees no violations in its inaction, and the State Secretary Vitaliy Petruk himself is "covering" them in the Ministry.

Consequently, in the 9 months since the application for expansion of the scope of accreditation was submitted to NAAU, the Agency has not been able to start the relevant work. The relevant NAAU officials "could not find" the documents that were in the NAAU's possession, and the NAAU employees responsible for the execution and signing of documents were permanently "on a business trip".

Instead of finally starting to act in accordance with the Law "On Accreditation of Conformity Assessment Bodies" and the documents of NAAU management system, the NAAU management represented by Serhii Kostiuk and Deputy Director for International Cooperation Krasiuk decided to take revenge in their usual manner.

Thus, on 8 September 2023, NAAU, without having any legal grounds for doing so, made a decision "On temporary suspension of the accreditation certificate of a conformity assessment body (CAB) or part of its scope", allegedly referring to the recommendation of the Commission for consideration of issues related to the activities of conformity assessment bodies.

The decision was justified as follows: "In connection with the establishment of the fact set out in clause 11 of the NAAU General Document "List of gross violations by the accredited conformity assessment body" and the lack of analysis of the reasons for the gross violation. In other words, according to NAAU, the CAB violated clause 2.14 of the General Accreditation Agreement with NAAU (it was not immediately informed about the changes that occurred in the laboratory resources).

However, this is not true, as the group of NAAU auditors who conducted the monitoring through supervision did not draw up any protocol of non-compliance on violation of clause 2.14 of the General Agreement with NAAU by G-Auto LLC. To confirm the groundlessness of NAAU's actions, the company provided the publication with copies of the protocols.

In addition, in accordance with clause 3 .5.3.3 of the Methodology "On-site assessment of laboratories and providers of professional level verification" M-08.01.14, the head of the audit team had to inform the management of the conformity assessment body about the possibility of NAAU decision to refuse accreditation or suspend or cancel the accreditation certificate, if gross violations by the CAB were detected during the assessment in accordance with the General Document of NAAU (3D-08.00.35), which the team leader did not do.

This is evidenced by the Minutes of the final meeting on the on-site assessment of the conformity assessment body for compliance with the established requirements of the testing laboratory of G-AUTO LLC dated 24.08.2023.

It should be noted that in accordance with clause 2.14 of the General Agreement and in accordance with the NAAU Methodology "Procedure for confirming compliance with accreditation requirements in case of changes in the accredited CAB and the scope of accreditation", G-AUTO LLC informed NAAU of the changes by letter dated 31.08.2023 together with the CAB self-assessment report in the form together with copies of the test site passports.

Thus, NAAU's actions include falsification of monitoring results through supervision, biased actions by NAAU management in relation to the testing laboratory of G-AUTO LLC and the adoption by a group of persons, through abuse of office, of an illegal decision to temporarily suspend the company's activities.

The company appealed to the NAAU and the relevant authorities to cancel the unlawful decision and demanded an investigation into the facts of illegal actions by a group of NAAU officials, in particular, falsification of monitoring results.

For the duration of the investigation, it is obvious that the NAAU officials involved in the unlawful decision should be suspended from their duties.

It should be noted that the facts of abuse by Kostiuk and other NAAU employees were covered in Pravo TV stories back in May-June 2023 (How the head of NAAU, appointed by the Ministry of Economy, Serhii Kostiuk, was searched for at work; How to create corruption in the National Accreditation Agency by artificially delaying the consideration of documents; How the deputy head of the National Accreditation Agency Sydorenko communicates with business: The 90s are having a rest).

Also, on 1 June 2023, the First Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Julia Svyrydenko gave an urgent order to investigate the situation around possible abuses in the activities of NAAU and its head Serhii Kostiuk following appeals from business and the media.

However, as of now, there is no public report on the results of the NAAU audit, although it was conducted. State Secretary of the Ministry of Economy Vitaliy Petruk responds to media inquiries by saying that the results of the audit are being "processed".

This state of affairs only confirms in the eyes of Ukrainians and international partners that the fight against corruption in Ukraine's government has not achieved any concrete results, and corrupt officials continue to feel quite free.

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