Afraid of losing control: lawyer explains why ARMA head Duma is blocking the agency's reform

The head of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency, Olena Duma, is trying to block draft law No. 12374-d on reforming the management system of seized assets, as its adoption will deprive her of influence. This opinion was expressed in an exclusive comment to UNN by lawyer, Honored Lawyer of Ukraine Volodymyr Bohatyr.

Details

Recently, Olena Duma again criticized draft law No. 12374-d, which has already been supported by the parliament in the first reading. She stated that the document "contains politically motivated norms" and "may harm the entire anti-corruption infrastructure." At the same time, she herself called her work at ARMA a "real breakthrough." At the same time, the head of the Verkhovna Rada's anti-corruption committee, Anastasia Radina, believes that Olena Duma and her colleagues "deliberately spread false information" about the draft law on ARMA reform in order to preserve the existing ineffective system.

According to Volodymyr Bohatyr, the reform would not be so critical for the agency's management if it were not for the objective results of ARMA's own activities. 

In the situation surrounding ARMA's activities, one could talk about some political games, where a member of parliament, the head of the Verkhovna Rada's relevant committee, is trying to influence the top official of one of the key bodies of the anti-corruption vertical through his draft law. The struggle for control, personnel influence, and demonstration of a public position in the eyes of international partners - all this can be assumed, if not for the objective indicators of this body's activity

The lawyer cited a number of examples from the Accounting Chamber's audit, which demonstrate the inefficiency of ARMA's work under the leadership of Olena Duma.

"State auditors have confirmed the institution's inability to fulfill its tasks in the field of managing seized assets and laid the foundation for reforming the institution," Bohatyr said. 

He reminded that the auditors found that for the majority of court decisions, assets were never accepted into the agency's management, for a long time there was no accounting of property transferred to ARMA, and the agency cannot control the activities of all managers. 

That is why, Bohatyr says, draft law No. 12374-d provides for the transfer of part of the asset management functions to new entities and proposes to divide assets into conditionally "complex" and "simple". 

It is clear that such initiatives are aimed at weakening the agency's influence. And no manager who is responsible for the activities of the agency under his control will try with all his might to prevent this and will look for all possible ways to block the process of such reform. Preserving the current model, which has proven its ineffectiveness in practice, poses direct risks to business. Both for those whose property is seized in the framework of criminal proceedings, and for those who, at the choice of ARMA, will manage such property

Add

The head of the Verkhovna Rada's anti-corruption committee Anastasia Radina previously noted that maintaining a constructive dialogue with ARMA is constantly complicated by manipulations. She cited three examples that demonstrate how the agency distorts data about its activities. One of them, Radina, called the case when the anti-corruption committee approached ARMA with a question about how many assets they have and how many of them have been transferred to management. The agency reported that there are 69,000 assets in the register, and 36,000 have been transferred to management, which is about 47%. However, a detailed analysis revealed that 20,000 of these 36,000 assets are movable property of Mezhyhiria, including bottles of wine, furniture and documents, which have no independent economic value.

In response, the head of ARMA Olena Duma called on the deputy to "analyze information".