The inefficiency of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency, problems with the management of seized assets, and scandals surrounding the agency's leadership have become the main complaints about its work. Under the leadership of Olena Duma, these problems have not only not been resolved, but have also taken on new dimensions. This opinion was expressed in an exclusive commentary to UNN by Volodymyr Bogatyr, a lawyer, Honored Lawyer of Ukraine.
“Since its inception, ARMA has been unlucky to have leaders whose activities have been accompanied by scandals and criminal cases. The current head of the agency has not corrected their mistakes, and it looks like she will not be an exception,” Bogatyr said.
According to the lawyer, one of the most striking examples of the agency's ineffective work is the situation with the Novoyavoriv and Novorozdilsk thermal power plants, which, before the arrest, provided heat and energy to the citizens of two districts in the Lviv region, and now have become unprofitable enterprises with officially recorded losses of UAH 557.6 million. Instead of preserving the value of their assets, as provided for by law, these CHP plants now require constant subsidies from the state budget.
“Moreover, their work was accompanied by threats of disruption of heating seasons and an emergency situation due to the shutdown of generating facilities. Interestingly, these problems and the critical situation were used to introduce and apply an exclusive procedure for electing a manager by a direct decision of the Cabinet of Ministers without competition. The last decree on this issue was adopted in 2021. And to date, the competition for the selection of the manager provided for by law has not been announced. That is, Olena Duma, having taken the chair of the head of the ARMA, agreed with this state of affairs,” Bogatyr emphasized.
He said that the owners of the CHP plant filed a criminal complaint with the National Anti-Corruption Bureau. “It was the ARMA leadership that revealed signs of a number of crimes. Let's hope that a pre-trial investigation will be launched and the facts revealed will be properly assessed,” the lawyer added.
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Statements about the non-transparent and ineffective work of the ARMA and its head, Olena Duma, have been made repeatedly. A petition calling for the dismissal of Olena Duma from her position due to her alleged ties to pro-Russian politicians and ineffective management of seized assetshas even appeared on the website of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.
In addition, all members of the ARMA Public Council have recently resigned. At the meeting, they emphasized the lack of transparency in the work of the ARMA and the fact that the agency creates artificial obstacles to the implementation of public control over its activities. They also stated that the ARMA leadership systematically ignores their appeals and does not involve them in the development of regulations, in violation of the law.
Ihor Chobitko, the former chairman of the Public Council under the ARMA, emphasized in a commentary to UNN that after the self-dissolution of the Public Council, the ARMA was left without external control, and therefore the activities of the ARMA cannot be called transparent.