Competition for head of ARMA will continue without Yaroslava Maksymenko and other candidates who failed general abilities test
The competition commission for the selection of a candidate for the position of the head 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) at a meeting on April 1 completed the consideration of complaints and moved on to the next stage of the Competition. Thus, the competition will continue with one candidate - Viktor Dubovyk, since all other candidates, including the acting head of ARMA Yaroslava Maksymenko, unexpectedly failed the second stage of the competition in the form of a general abilities test.
During the meeting of the Competition Commission, two complaints from candidates Dmytro Nikitin and Volodymyr Murzha were considered. The favorite of the competition - the current head of ARMA - did not dispute the negative result for herself. The authors of the complaints claimed that they could not properly pass the tests due to their psycho-emotional state, since the testing took place during a prolonged air alert declared in Ukraine.
At the same time, the members of the Commission noted that the testing procedure took place in a premises qualified for safety requirements, selected in full compliance with the safety requirements in a special tender, as stipulated by the competition rules. The selection participants were well aware of this and everyone was on equal terms.
Only Rita Simoes spoke out in favor of canceling the results of the second stage and re-conducting the testing. However, the decision to continue the competition was made by a majority vote.
Thus, the Commission began preparing the third stage - a practical task (on real cases of possible situations when driving an ARMA). Only one candidate out of 20 participants who applied for the competition was able to get into it. The third stage is scheduled for April 2.
The main discussion on the further fate of the competition took place at a meeting the day after the favorite of the competition, Yaroslava Maksymenko, and the vast majority of participants received an unexpected failure result in the second stage of the competition. And the Commission was faced with the question of whether to continue the competition further, if after the second stage there was only one candidate left.
The same Rita Simoes insisted that the Commission "retroactively" revise the requirements for the test in order to allow the favorite and several other participants to continue the competition. However, the majority of the members of the Commission, although they expressed sadness about the unexpected "candidate drop", nevertheless pointed out the absence of any legal grounds for revising the approved competition conditions in the interests of certain candidates. The Commission gave time to appeal the results, after which it decided to move on according to the established procedure.
In order for the competition not to end ahead of schedule, the only candidate, Viktor Dubovyk, will need to successfully complete a practical task, as well as pass an interview and a special integrity check. If he also fails at any of the stages, the competition may be canceled as not having taken place.