MOSCOW, October 18 (RIA Novosti) -The Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs may lose 20 percent of its employees as a result of the introduction of a new law on lustration, said the Ukrainian Deputy Interior Minister Nikolai Velichkovych.
"I am not ruling out that some people will be fired. Because even now, with the numbers we have, we still expect downsizing to affect at least 20% of the Ministry's workforce," Velichkovych said as quoted by the Ukrainian 112.ua information agency.
Earlier the country's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said that some 15,000 Ukrainian police officers decided to stay on the territories of the self-proclaimed people's republics of Donetsk and Luhansk (DPR and LPR). They have been fired and deprived of pensions. Velichkovych stated that 17,000 Ministry's employees have been fired for breaking their oaths.
On October 9, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed the bill on vetting of officials, empowered to perform state or local self-government functions, into law.
According to Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the vetting would affect about one million public officials at all levels, employees of law enforcement agencies and "the entire cabinet of ministers."
The bill states that officials who fail to pass or do not agree to the screening, apart from those applying for or occupying elected positions shall be dismissed by the inspection body from office with prohibition to hold public posts for ten years.
