The illusion of transparency and success: why Olena Duma's statement about the ARMA audit raises doubts

The head of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency, Olena Duma, has once again attracted attention for her ability to use facts to create the illusion of efficiency. Her statement about the results of the Accounting Chamber's audit of ARMA's activities was an example of how manipulation and emphasis on selective moments help to hide real failures in the work, UNN writes.

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In a post on her tg channel, Elena Duma called the audit "an unprecedented step in ensuring maximum transparency." She emphasized the agency's record revenue growth, the introduction of new management mechanisms, and improved performance in 2024.

"As of the end of the audit, ARMA has generated UAH 1.15 billion in management revenues in 2024, which is a 33-fold increase compared to the results of 2022 - UAH 34.8 million," the Head of the Agency proudly stated.

The Duma also emphasized the positive changes recorded by the auditor, including updating the register of seized assets, strengthening the agency's international status, and fighting corruption.

The Accounting Chamber, in turn, presented a more objective assessment. Among other things, the audit revealed imperfections in the existing mechanisms for selecting managers and appraisers of confiscated assets and shortcomings in internal regulations for effective monitoring and control. 

"The auditors also noted that the management of seized assets was carried out in the context of unresolved relations between ARMA and the prosecutor's office and pre-trial investigation authorities at the stage of transfer and acceptance of assets. There is also a lack of tools for effective work to preserve/increase the economic value of assets. Out of more than 100,000 court orders to seize property, only 1% provided for its transfer to ARMA. A significant number of court orders are not enforced due to the lack of a regulated procedure for transferring assets and insufficient cooperation with prosecutors and pre-trial investigators. According to 549 decisions, assets worth more than UAH 39.4 billion remain unaccepted for management, which indicates significant losses for the state," the auditors noted.

In addition, the audit found significant problems with the Unified State Register of Assets , which the Duma boasted about. "(...) the Unified State Register of Assets (USRA) lacks complete information on assets, which leads to distortion of data on their value. Control over the effectiveness of the management of the transferred assets (under a third of the contracts) led to a shortfall in the expected result from asset management (economic benefit or projected income), estimated at UAH 81.3 million," the Accounting Chamber said in a statement.

The auditors made a number of recommendations to improve ARMA's asset management process, in particular:

-      to regulate ARMA's relations with the prosecutor's office, pre-trial investigation bodies and foreign authorities;

-      To conduct an inventory of all court orders and assets to be taken into management, their execution and reconciliation with the Office of the Prosecutor General;

-      Establish clear and transparent criteria for the competitive selection of appraisers and asset managers;

-      Improve the procedure for conducting electronic auctions for the transfer of assets for management (sale).

The head of ARMA, Olena Duma, emphasized the positive aspects of the report, but avoided discussing systemic failures. Thus, her claims of "successful transformation" of the agency look dubious against the backdrop of the auditors' criticism of the agency's shortcomings.

The Duma also decided not to focus on the recommendations made by the Accounting Chamber, but instead once again described the legislative initiatives the agency had prepared.

Thus, Olena Duma's statement is yet another example of how statistics and individual facts are used to cover up systemic failures. The emphasis on revenue growth and the introduction of new mechanisms may give the impression of success, but it does not reflect the real state of affairs.

ARMA still faces significant challenges that need to be addressed comprehensively. The illusion of effectiveness created by the Head of the agency only diverts attention from the real problems that continue to harm the public interest.

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The Head of ARMA, Olena Duma, does not miss an opportunity to use high-profile topics for self-promotion. In particular, she tried to promote herself on the topic of the MSEC. Duma has repeatedly emphasized her "role" in exposing corruption schemes at the MSEC and hintedthat it was her efforts in 2020 that gave impetus to the exposure of corruption schemes at the MSEC. At that time, the Head of the ARMA not only described her "heroic path" of fighting corruption, but also indirectly took credit for the liquidation of medical commissions.

At the same time, Transparency International Ukraine emphasizedthat ARMA often has "contradictory communication from the agency or its officials, combined with populism, violation of the presumption of innocence and lack of understanding of the competence of state bodies".

The Asset Recovery and Management Agency decided not to comment on Transparency International Ukraine's remarks about "contradictory communication" on the part of the agency's officials, and instead spoke about their "achievements" in drafting laws.

This is not the only criticism of the ARMA due to populism. Earlier, experts emphasizedthat the agency focuses more on politically high-profile cases related to oligarchs than on the effective preservation and management of transferred assets. It is worth noting that Olena Duma in her public speeches has repeatedly emphasized the transfer of assets of oligarchs Dmytro Firtash, Mikhail Fridman and Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to ARMA among the "achievements" of her work.