Head of ARMA “publicly lies” about agency’s revenues – Radina appeals to OGP, Duma makes excuses

The head of the Verkhovna Rada Anti-Corruption Committee, Anastasia Radina, stated that the head of ARMA, Olena Duma, "publicly lies" about the state's income from asset management and also tries to hide the real results of her work from the public. In this regard, the MP appealed to the Office of the Prosecutor General and the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, UNN writes.

Details

As Anastasia Radina reported, ARMA refused to provide public data on assets managed by the agency. The response to her parliamentary request was marked "for official use only" (DSK), although previously such requests were satisfied openly.

The head of ARMA publicly lies that in 2024, the state's income from asset management amounted to UAH 12.3 billion - the real income amount is six times less. Moreover, ARMA began to hide the true results of its work from the public... Previously, ARMA provided open responses to all my similar requests. The information I requested is subject to disclosure in the ARMA report in accordance with the law. Disclosure of information about funds received from asset management is mandatory in accordance with the ARMA law. The Law "On Access to Public Information" prohibits closing information that was previously disclosed with the DSK stamp. Therefore, the attempt of the head of ARMA to hide important information about assets under state management and income from their management under the DSK stamp is illegal 

Radina stated that she is appealing to the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights regarding the agency's unreasonable restriction of access to public information and to the Office of the Prosecutor General regarding obstruction of the activities of a People's Deputy of Ukraine.

An even more egregious fact, according to the MP, is ARMA's manipulation regarding the agency's income. Duma repeatedly stated that in 2024, ARMA brought UAH 12.3 billion in income to the state. However, the real figures turned out to be completely different.

Since Ms. Duma did not impose the DSK stamp on her response to my similar request, dated at the end of October 2024, let's use it: for 2024, the income from asset management and seized cash amounted to UAH 2.1 billion at that time 

Moreover, an analysis of official documents shows that UAH 10.5 billion, which was included in the total figure, are seized funds of criminal case defendants that are held in deposits and government bonds. 

However, the amount of funds seized from defendants is in no way and cannot be ARMA's income from managing seized assets - this is absurd, and the head of the body, it seems, deliberately misleads society... The mildest words that can describe the state of managing seized assets in ARMA are deception and chaos, due to which the state loses millions of hryvnias 

What Duma says

The head of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency, Olena Duma, in response to Radina's accusations, stated that she "will operate with facts," but her excuses are more like a confirmation of doubts about the transparency of the agency's work.

It is very regrettable that precisely the seized funds, with which we replenished the agency's portfolio and which are now working for the budget and defense forces, were not even written off from the enemy's accounts before, but worked in commercial banks 

Duma did not deny that ARMA's income from asset management actually amounted to only slightly more than UAH 2 billion. However, she tried to justify the inflated figures by stating that seized funds should also be considered the agency's contribution.

Well, to claim that these written-off funds do not go to the budget is unprofessional 

At the same time, Duma shifted the criticism to the political plane, accusing Radina of wanting to "block the agency's work" through ARMA reform.

Recall

Earlier, Anastasia Radina noted that constructive dialogue with ARMA is complicated by manipulations. She gave three examples that demonstrate how the agency distorts data about its activities. One of them, Radina called the case when the anti-corruption committee asked ARMA how many assets they have and how many of them were transferred to management? The agency reported that there are 69 thousand assets in the register, and 36 thousand, or about 47%, were transferred to management. However, a detailed analysis showed that 20 thousand of these 36 thousand assets are movable property of Mezhyhirya, including bottles of wine, furniture, and documents, which have no independent economic value.

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