Swearing and fear: current and former employees talk about the management style of “ARMA mom” Duma

The personnel policy and management decisions of the head of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency, Olena Duma, have been met with mixed reviews from her former and current subordinates. In comments to UNN on condition of anonymity, they said that under Duma's leadership, the agency faced a number of challenges that, in their words, impede the effective work of the institution.

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One of UNN's interlocutors pointed out that over the past year, the structure of the ARMA has changed several times, indicating a chaotic approach to the formation of personnel policy.

“I know that there were cases, including duplication of functions, when two staff structures were operating simultaneously, and both staff structures had duplicate specialists. That is, for example, a person responsible for public procurement was appointed, performed his duties and received a salary in his own staff structure, and in the new staff structure, a person responsible for the same functions also performed these duties and received a salary. In other words, there was inefficient spending of budget funds. There were such cases,” said the former ARMA official.

In addition, he noted that selection for positions in the ARMA is based on unclear criteria and does not comply with civil service laws. According to them, the agency often employs people with no experience in asset management, which creates additional challenges for achieving the agency's goals.

“The principles by which personnel are selected are exclusively obedient, submissive, and one's own. There are no principles of professionalism. Personnel management is based on the principle that a person should be constantly afraid, intimidated and regularly receive punishment from the management. And the Duma is famous for this..., outright swearing from this beautiful woman is the norm. This is the personnel policy,” complains Duma's former subordinate.

UNN's interlocutors also noted that the agency lacks qualified personnel, and turnover is extremely high. For example, the Asset Management Department has had four managers in a year. This affects institutional memory and consistency in asset management, as new employees often do not have time to properly familiarize themselves with the processes before leaving.

Current employees of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency also complain about the lack of teamwork. According to them, the agency has become a place where “everyone works against everyone,” and the lack of a unified strategy leads to “chaos” within the organization.

In order to improve the agency's work, according to current and former ARMA employees interviewed by UNN , it is necessary to return to strict adherence to the law, ensure openness in its activities, and involve public control to assess the work of the management.

Such problems in the personnel policy are likely to affect the effective management of assets transferred to ARMA, which in turn could lead to large financial losses for the state, as companies whose assets are managed by the agency may claim compensation for losses from impairment or improper storage of their assets.

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This is not the first signal of management problems in ARMA. Since Olena Duma's appointment as the head of the agency, there have been discussions from time to time about her lack of experience . She even had to justify this and argued her expertise by saying that she graduated from school with a gold medal and has “a lot of experience”.

In general, 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, there are doubts about the political independence of the ARMA leadership. In particular, recently it became known about possible backroom agreements taking place in ARMA under the leadership of Olena Duma. According to informed sources of UNN, a close associate of the former deputy head of the Presidential Administration of Viktor Yanukovych, Andriy Portnov, lawyer and former MP Valeriy Pysarenko, regularly visits the ARMA headquarters in Kyiv to meet personally with Olena Duma. The purpose of his visit is allegedly to discuss the transfer of large seized assets in favor of certain influential individuals, including Yulia Tymoshenko. Among such assets was, for example, the capital's Gulliver shopping center.

Immediately after the publication of this material, the ARMA was quick to disassociate itself from these visits. They stated that there were no visitors with the name Valeriy Pysarenko in the log, and that Olena Duma was “not familiar” with the former MP at all.

However, they forgot to indicatethat their headquarters can be entered through four more “back” entrances and climbed through a window and two fire escapes, which have no logs of visits and security.