The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has appointed Olena Duma as the head of the National Agency for Finding, Tracing and Management of Assets Derived from Corruption (ARMA).
The decision was made at a government meeting.
Few days earlier, the competition commission recommended appointing Olena Duma, former deputy head of the Chernihiv Regional State Administration, as the new director of ARMA. This decision caused a negative reaction.
In particular, Transparency International Ukraine stated that this choice poses “a significant danger to the further work of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency and the anti-corruption ecosystem in general.” The organization drew attention to Duma’s lack of professional experience and her alleged business contacts with high treason and suspected collaborators with russia. TIU called on the Cabinet of Ministers not to appoint her.
The ambassadors of the Group of Seven countries also drew attention to the “concerns of civil society” after the recommendation to appoint Olena Duma as the head of the ARMA.
“The G7 has closely followed the process of appointing the head of ARMA and noted the concerns of civil society about the procedures followed. It is important to follow proper procedures to build trust in ARMA,” the G7 ambassadors’ Twitter account said.
In addition, on June 29, Dmytro Ostapenko, a member of the selection committee, announced that he was withdrawing his vote for Olena Duma’s candidacy and initiating an extraordinary meeting of the selection committee to elect the head of ARMA.
Following the criticism, Duma said she was putting pressure on the selection panel and the government.
“Regarding yesterday’s statement about the withdrawal of Dmytro Ostapenko’s vote. The law does not provide for a mechanism for withdrawing a vote. The fact of Ostapenko’s vote for my candidacy has been recorded… I believe that the statement of withdrawal of the vote is an undermining of the legal system of the state. Once again, they are disrupting the competition to work off the money and hold another competition. This is a tremendous pressure on the members of the competition commission and the government. There is a struggle to keep the interim in place and to continue the corruption schemes I mentioned at the interview,” Duma said at a press conference on June 30.
She called critical posts and articles about her “paid-for”.
It worth to mentioned, that in 2019, Olena Duma attended at a joint press conference next to Rudolph Giuliani’s financial donor (lawyer of ex-US President Donald Trump and ex-mayor of New York) Sam Kislin.
The title of that enchanting performance was “Disclosure of the facts of the corrupt activities of the highest officials of Ukraine.”
Kislin was the main mouthpiece of the campaign to discredit Ukraine and the then US presidential candidate Joe Biden. The US Congress subpoenaed Kislin to testify whether they arranged for Giuliani to meet with Ukrainian prosecutors to initiate an investigation into Joe Biden’s son.
It is well known that in 2016, Kislin bought the Cyprus offshore company of the fugitive president and enemy of the Ukrainian people, Yanukovych, with a lot of seized money in the accounts, under the code name “$1.5 Yanukovych yard”. Since that time, Kislin has been trying to take the money that “rightfully belongs to him” and not to Ukraine.
Back in the 1990s, the FBI investigated Kislin’s possible connections with the mafia and the laundering of Russian money, but then his guilt was not proven.The ARMA is authorized, among other things, to identify and trace assets – property that can be seized in criminal proceedings or in a case of recognizing assets as unjustified and recovering them for the state. Based on a court decision, ARMA also manages assets seized in criminal proceedings in order to preserve or increase their economic value.
At the same time, “life led” Olena Duma to a close private relationship with Oleg Kulinich, ex-head of the Crimean Department of the Security Service. Yes, yes, this is the same Kulinich who was personally “packaged” as part of the detention group of the SBU. Kulinich is suspected of working for the Russians and treason. Remind with whom he was associated? That’s right, with Viktor Medvedchuk.
The ARMA is authorized, among other things, to identify and trace assets – property that can be seized in criminal proceedings or in a case of recognizing assets as unjustified and recovering them for the state. Based on a court decision, ARMA also manages assets seized in criminal proceedings in order to preserve or increase their economic value.
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