"What they were doing is unclear": the expert criticized the work of ARMA under the leadership of Duma

The head of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency, Olena Duma, acknowledged that the agency cannot manage the corporate rights transferred to it. At the same time, in a year and a half of work, ARMA has not developed the necessary procedures, continuing to accept assets only "on paper." Such a management model is hard to call effective, said former secretary of the Public Council at ARMA, Dmytro Hromakov, in an exclusive comment to UNN.

Details

Earlier, a court in Kyiv ruled to transfer the assets belonging to the sanctioned oligarch, Kostiantyn Zhevago, to ARMA for management. However, the head of ARMA, Olena Duma, immediately stated that the agency was given for management what is "impossible to manage." Thus, she effectively acknowledged that the agency is unable to perform its main function. Duma shifted the responsibility for this onto the parliament and is asking to expand the agency's powers.

According to Dmytro Hromakov, this situation looks as if ARMA has simply been accepting assets on paper for years, without having real management mechanisms.

Or another option - ARMA was simply transferring management of assets to some related structures. Why did Duma acknowledge this only now? I think she has simply come to the conclusion that they cannot work with asset management due to the fact that they have not created any procedures as such. They have not been adopted, not written out, and cannot be somehow approved. And considering that ARMA is undergoing inspections, something needs to be done

The expert added that such a position of the agency's leadership is evidence of the failure of the agency's work under Duma's leadership.

She simply wasted a year and a half during which procedures could have been developed or somehow adopted to manage these corporate assets. If she did not do this, then it is her problem and the problem of the management structure in general. That is, what they were engaged in is unclear. We have seen many scandals, but we do not see the real work of ARMA during this period

Recall

The Accounting Chamber conducted an audit of ARMA for 2022-2023 and the first half of 2024, which revealed significant problems in the management of seized assets. In particular, auditors emphasized such issues: the imperfection of the mechanisms for selecting managers and appraisers of confiscated assets; incomplete data on assets in the register; unregulated relationships between ARMA and the prosecution authorities and pre-trial investigation bodies.

However, the head of ARMA, Olena Duma, called the audit "an unprecedented step towards ensuring maximum transparency." She emphasized the record growth in the agency's revenues, the implementation of new management mechanisms, and improvements in indicators in 2024. At the same time, the head of the agency avoided comments on the problems identified during the audit. 

In Transparency International Ukraine, based on the audit results, pointed out the need to reform ARMA. Anti-corruption experts indicated that the agency's activities currently raise serious concerns, including among international partners.