Government prepares to reboot ARMA

The Cabinet of Ministers is preparing to conduct an independent audit of the National Agency of Ukraine for Finding, Tracing and Management of Assets Derived from Corruption and Other Crimes (Asset Recovery and Management Agency, ARMA) activities.

This was stated in an interview with the Ukrainian News Agency by the acting head of ARMA Yaroslava Maksymenko, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"The Cabinet of Ministers is already preparing to create a commission to conduct an independent external assessment (audit) of ARMA activities, which will be the first step towards a complete reboot of the institution," Maksymenko said.

She noted that she had simultaneously begun her own audit of the Agency's activities.

"At the same time, I immediately started my own audit. Less than a month has passed since my appointment, and I have already uncovered a number of blatant facts, particularly in the international direction of work. A striking example is the story with the yacht, which became a sensation, but, unfortunately, reflects deeper systemic problems. Therefore, I started a personnel purge and an internal audit was launched. This will allow us to see the real state of affairs in the agency. Purging the system is a painful but necessary process, because without it there will be no movement forward," Maksymenko shared.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, the Cabinet of Ministers temporarily assigned the duties of the head of the ARMA to Yaroslava Maksymenko, the deputy head of ARMA for European integration. Before her appointment to ARMA, she held the position of director of the Department of Property Policy and Sanctions of the Ministry of Economy, where she coordinated the formation and implementation of sanctions policy, including the management of sanctioned assets. At the Ministry of Economy, she was also one of the developers and coordinators of the public sector corporate reform. Maksymenko also participated in the implementation of reforms in the field of transparent sales and asset management (ProZorro, ProZorro.Sales).