The Ministry of Defence of Ukraine is putting together a new procurement architecture that will meet NATO standards and operate according to the best corporate governance practices.

This was stated by the acting director of the Procurement Policy Department of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, Hlib Kanievskyi, at a meeting with representatives of the NATO Support and Procurement Agency, which took place at the NATO headquarters in Brussels.

According to Hlib Kanievskyi, the new team of the Ministry of Defence has begun a major reform of procurement for the Armed Forces. Under the previous procurement structure, all power was centralized in the Ministry. For example, the non-lethal acquisition was fully handled by the resource provision department where they calculated the expected cost of purchases, communicated with market participants, and directly conducted bidding.

The concentration of these functions on the one hand was the main driver of potential corruption, noted the head of the Department of Procurement Policy.

To eliminate such risk, the Ministry of Defence delegated direct purchaser responsibility to two specialized bodies.

"In the new procurement system, the Ministry retained only the function of policy development, i.e. establishing rules and quality control," said Hlib Kanievskyi. - The goal of the Ministry of Defence is a redesigned procurement architecture for the Armed Forces of Ukraine according to NATO standards."

The Non-lethal Defence Acquisition Agency is currently engaged in the procurement of non-lethal goods. This agency has already entered the auction through the Prozorro system and purchases clothing, body armor, helmets, fuel and lubricants for the Armed Forces.

Weapons and ammunition are purchased by the Lethal Defence Acquisition Agency. Recently, the Agency announced for the first time through the Prozorro system the purchase of 20,000 unmanned aerial systems (UAVs) with a total expected cost of almost 3 billion hryvnias (excluding VAT).

To increase oversight over purchasers' activities, the Ministry of Defence initiated the establishment of supervisory boards in those agencies, added the head of the Department of Procurement Policy. The Lethal Defence Acquisition Agency has announced the selection of a recruiting company that will help select independent supervisory board members.

Its responsibilities will include developing an anti-corruption policy, as well as appointing and terminating the powers of the head of the internal audit unit. Preparations are being made for the start of the selection of the recruiting company for the Non-lethal Defence Acquisition Agency, noted Hlib Kanevskyi.

In addition to the working meeting with the NATO Agency for Support and Procurement, representatives of the Ministry of Defence held meetings devoted to the topics "Ukraine-NATO Council" (with the NATO Operations Department), "Civilian Oversight of the Army" (with the NATO International Military Headquarters), "U.S. Priorities for NATO" (with the US Permanent Representative to NATO).