To be or not to be reformed? The head of ARMA is afraid of changes that may threaten her position - expert
Kyiv • UNN
To be or not to be reformed? The head of ARMA is afraid of changes that may threaten her position - expert.
The head of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency, Olena Duma, is sabotaging the adoption of draft law No. 12374-d, which provides for changes to the system of managing seized assets, as she is trying to extend her longer tenure. This opinion was expressed in an exclusive comment to UNN by a lawyer, former head of the Public Council under ARMA, Ihor Chobitko.
Details
This week, deputies will vote in the second reading on draft law No. 12374-d, which should change the approaches to finding managers for seized assets, selecting the head of ARMA and conducting an audit. These requirements are spelled out in the plan of the EU financial support program Ukraine Facility, within which the government should receive EUR 12.5 billion from the program this year. The ARMA reform is supported by anti-corruption experts at Transparency International Ukraine, and deputies from the anti-corruption and financial committees of the Verkhovna Rada. However, the head of the agency, Olena Duma, is actively opposed to the specified draft law.
According to Ihor Chobitko, Olena Duma is actively resisting the reform because she is afraid of losing personal influence on the agency.
"The head of ARMA has already said a lot today about the need to reform the agency and to make appropriate changes to the current legislation. However, as soon as it comes to real changes that are agreed and supported by the European community and comply with the current norms of international law, there is immediate resistance from the ARMA leadership to any such changes that could really affect the state of influence on the agency by the ARMA leadership and thereby ensure a longer stay in office," he said.
In addition, the expert pointed out the contradictions in Olena Duma's rhetoric regarding the ARMA reform.
"At the beginning of the year, I personally asked a question during the report of the head of ARMA. And she told me that Transparency's opinion and their conclusions are important to her... But now, as you can see, this contradicts the previously expressed public opinion. And in fact, she is only confirming that the head of ARMA makes decisions only from her own desire at one time or another. Either she supports Transparency's conclusions, or she refutes them if she doesn't like something, for example, something that may affect not the interests of the agency, but the interests of the current head," Chobitko explained.
Let us remind you
Olena Duma has repeatedly criticized draft law No. 12374-d on the ARMA reform, 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 calls 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 are "deliberately spreading false information" about the draft law on the ARMA reform in order to preserve the existing ineffective system.
Transparency International Ukraine actually supported Anastasia Radina's position and stated that the resistance of the head of ARMA, Olena Duma, is nothing more than a reluctance to get rid of levers of influence. Anti-corruption experts conducted a content analysis of ARMA's public communication and came to the conclusion that instead of a constructive dialogue on reforming the institution, the agency has built a campaign to discredit draft law No. 12374-d on changing the system of managing seized property and avoids any public recognition of its own mistakes.
