The Verkhovna Rada Committee on Anti-Corruption Policy considered the Report of the Accounting Chamber on the results of the ARMA audit

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Committee on Anti-Corruption Policy at its meeting on January 23 considered Report of the Accounting Chamber on the results of the audit of the compliance of the use of state budget funds and asset management by the National Agency of Ukraine for the Identification, Search and Management of Assets Obtained from Corruption and Other Crimes.

During the meeting, the member of the Accounting Chamber responsible for the audit, Yelizaveta Pushko-Tsybulyak, noted that to date, the results of ARMA's activities regarding the possession, use and disposal of assets that have been seized in criminal proceedings or in a case of recognizing assets as unfounded and their recovery as state revenue do not fully meet expectations, as they provided for the introduction of transparent and effective mechanisms for the formation and implementation of state policy in the field of managing such assets.

The member of the Accounting Chamber recalled that according to the results of the audit, in the first half of 2024, there was an improvement in ARMA's performance compared to previous years. This made it possible to ensure revenues to the state budget from asset management (overall for the audit period) in the amount of over UAH 0.4 billion, to receive income from cash management - UAH 0.6 billion, to direct UAH 6.8 billion of cash assets to a deposit account in the bank (including UAH 1.6 billion from the sale of assets),for which bonds of the domestic state loan («Military Bonds») were purchased for UAH 5.4 billion.

At the same time, according to Elizaveta Pushko-Tsybulyak, the audit identified a number of reasons that did not contribute to the effective management of ARMA assets:

- imperfection of the regulatory and legal framework;

- insufficient and fragmentary information about assets;

- unregulated relations between ARMA and prosecutor's offices, pre-trial investigation bodies at the stage of transfer and acceptance of assets;

- lack of tools necessary to preserve (if possible – increase) the economic value of assets;

- imperfection of existing mechanisms for selecting managers and appraisers (during the sale) of assets;

- lack of internal regulatory norms for effective monitoring and control.

As a result – 80.3% of court decisions were not implemented, and assets worth over UAH 39.4 billion have not yet been accepted for management.

«I hope that the implementation of the recommendations of the Accounting Chamber on improving processes will contribute, first of all, to transparent and effective further management of assets. And the approach to financing will also be changed, which will ensure the institutional capacity of ARMA», – noted Yelizaveta Pushko-Tsybulyak.

The member of the Accounting Chamber also emphasized during her speech that the recommendations of the Accounting Chamber have already been partially taken into account in the Draft Law No. 12374-2, which is an example of coordinated cooperation between auditors and people's deputies.

The Chairwoman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Budget, Roksolana Pidlasa, who also participated in the Committee meeting, stressed that the draft law on ARMA reform is one of the requirements of the Ukraine Facility.

As a result of the discussion, the Chairwoman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Anti-Corruption Policy, Anastasia Radina, thanked the Accounting Chamber for the Report and emphasized the special importance of certain recommendations and conclusions: the problem of asset inventory, the lack of fixing their value and timely accounting, the lack of regulation of the terms of transferring the received assets to ARMA for further management, etc.

ARMA Chairwoman Olena Duma noted during the meeting that her institution had already formed a plan to implement the recommendations of the Accounting Chamber and had begun to implement it.