The Public Council under the ARMA accused the agency of non-transparency and creating artificial obstacles to their work and resigned. This is stated in the minutes of the council meeting, UNN reports.
Details
Yesterday, on September 23, a meeting of the ARMA Public Council was held, attended by all five of its members. Ihor Chobitko, Chairman of the Public Council, said that the other day the management had deprived him of the opportunity to attend the meeting, which discussed the ARMA budget for 2025. In general, he noted that the transparency of the agency's activities remains at an unsatisfactory level and stated that the council is currently unable to exercise public control over the spending of funds from the state budget on ARMA, the selection of legal entities to sell assets, and the effectiveness of asset management. In order to fulfill these functions, the public council has repeatedly requested access to relevant documents and materials from ARMA, but has been denied such access.
Other members of the public council also emphasized the lack of transparency in the work of the ARMA and the fact that the agency creates artificial obstacles to public control over their activities.
"Dmytro Hromakov said that he has repeatedly received requests from media representatives regarding ARMA's activities, but due to the failure to provide information and documents at the request of the public council, it is virtually impossible to inform the public on certain issues with reference to the relevant documents, which does not facilitate the exercise of the constitutional right of citizens to access information and participation in the management of public affairs, as well as public control over the National Agency," the minutes of the meeting read.
Therefore, all five members of the ARMA Public Council decided to terminate the activities of this supervisory body and to cease their membership in it.
At the same time, the head of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency, Olena Duma, openly ignored the commentsmade by members of the public council.
"It is worth noting that during the full-scale war against Ukraine, the stay of the leadership of the Public Council in Kharkiv, the complications arising from the power supply and, accordingly, the ability to promptly work on urgent issues, in the absence of funds and funding, which was repeatedly drawn to the attention of the members of the Public Council, the possibility of constant participation in meetings of the commissions held by the National Agency offline, the previous resignation of four members of the Public Council on their own initiative, ARMA supports the decision of the general meeting and thanks the previous composition of the Public Council for the approved decisions," Duma wrote on its Telegram channel about the reason for the resignation of the public council.
This response from Olena Duma clearly indicates that we should not expect openness and transparency in ARMA's work in the near future, and that the council members will try to hide all the comments.
It is worth noting that the Public Council with this composition has been working at ARMA since January 2022, i.e. before Olena Duma was appointed as the Head of ARMA.