“Populism is at a high level in ARMA": ex-chairman of the public council on the need for external audit in the agency

The lack of proper control over the work of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency leads to possible abuse and poor quality of management of seized assets, and therefore it is necessary to conduct an independent external audit of ARMA's activities. This opinion was expressed in an exclusive commentary to UNN by Ihor Chobitko, a lawyer and former chairman of the Public Council under the ARMA.

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Recently, Transparency International Ukraine presented a report on Ukraine's achievements in anti-corruption reform for the period from February 2014 to March 2024. Among other things, anti-corruption activists emphasized the need for an independent audit of the ARMA to improve its performance.

Ihor Chobitko emphasized that members of the ARMA Public Council had also repeatedly emphasized the need for an independent audit of the ARMA's work before they disbanded, but it was never conducted.

"We have repeatedly appealed to the Cabinet of Ministers, the Verkhovna Rada, and the President that ARMA lacks an external audit, which is required by the current legislation. Accordingly, there is no possibility to carry out such an audit, which would really answer the questions that society is now asking," he said.

According to him, after the self-dissolution of the public council at the ARMA, the body was left without any external control at all.

"And today, since our powers have been terminated, we have also noticed that any control that could be effective over ARMA is absent. Of course, such uncontrolled activity may give rise to such assumptions, and perhaps it is not an assumption, but rather abuse of certain categories of civil servants in their positions, who may distort information, not provide full information to the public regarding seized assets so that they can exercise their right to participate in asset management. In general, the activities related to asset management in ARMA today are at a very low level," Chobitko said.

In his opinion, only populism is currently at a high level in the ARMA.

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Three weeks ago, all members of the Public Council at ARMA resigned from their positions. Thus, the ARMA was left without external control at all, and therefore its activities cannot be called transparent.

In general, statements about the need for an independent external audit of the ARMA have been made repeatedly. In particular, Pavlo Demchuk , legal advisor of Transparency International Ukraine, notedthat a full-fledged external audit of the ARMA has never been conducted, and the limited amount of information about the agency's activities may pose corruption risks.

Amid the criticism, ARMA head Olena Duma even made a statement that she had ordered an audit of the agency's activities for 2023 from the Accounting Chamber.

MP Oleksiy Kucherenko believesthat the results of the audit of the Accounting Chamber may be grounds for dismissal of ARMA head Olena Duma.