Renewed Ukrainian penitentiary system may be launched in September

The competition for the positions of the director of probation department, regime department, and the resource provision department, who will deal with transparent public procurement within Prozorro system, is ongoing in Ukraine.

This was stated by First Deputy Justice Minister of Ukraine Natalia Sevostyanova, the Human Rights Information Centre correspondent reports.

According to her, the competitions will take place in several waves. The directors of departments will be selected during the first wave. The heads of subdivisions within the structure of the three departments will be selected during the second wave.

The Deputy Minister hopes that 30-40% of staff of the three departments will be hired by September. Then the authorities could be transferred from the State Penitentiary Service to the Justice Ministry.

Natalia Sevostyanova noted that conduct of the reform lacked money, so there was a need to optimize it.

“We cannot ask for money due to a difficult economic situation. However, the budget of the penitentiary system is UAH 3 billion per year. In our opinion, it is necessary to optimize the government procurement, to strictly monitor them and to save money,” she said.