The RISE Ukraine coalition demands public access to the Unified State Register of Assets Seized in Criminal Proceedings (the Register), in particular through publication in the form of open data. The corresponding appeal was published on the website of the coalition, which also includes the Office of Effective Regulation of BRDO.
What is this Register about?
The Unified State Register of Assets Seized in Criminal Proceedings records seized assets in all criminal proceedings in Ukraine. The register is administered by the Agency for Search and Asset Management. It contains, in particular, a description and value of the entire portfolio of assets under the management of ARMA, information about the income received from the management of these assets, the duration of the property management agreement and any actions with them. It also contains information about courts and law enforcement agencies involved in the process of making relevant arrest decisions.
What is the problem?
The Agency for Tracing and Management of Assets (ARMA) hides information about existing seized assets. This does not allow monitoring the effectiveness of the management of seized property transferred to the Agency. Transparent management of seized assets is important for preventing abuses and controlling the filling of the state budget from which reconstruction is financed. The availability of information on seized assets also allows for more effective monitoring of the status of criminal cases related to corruption.
During 2022, ARMA handed over assets worth 7 billion hryvnias to managers, while revenues to the budget from the management of ARMA assets for the past year amounted to only 34 million hryvnias. Public activists are recording signs of possible embezzlement of the arrested enterprises that ARMA has taken over. In some cases, arrested companies are idle for many months and accumulate debts as a result of the long time spent searching for a manager. According to the results of the meeting of the Temporary Investigative Commission of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, it became known about possible signs of sale of seized goods at reduced prices, delay in seizure of assets and sale of assets in a non-transparent manner.
The openness of the Register is provided for in Part 1 of Art. 25 of the profile Law of Ukraine “On the National Agency of Ukraine on Identification, Search and Management of Assets Obtained from Corruption and Other Crimes”; The data of the Register are also included in the List of data sets to be made public in the form of open data. Despite this, ARMA did not provide public access to the data of the Register.
The RISE UA coalition demands that the data of the Register be made public in a format that will allow convenient analysis of the contents of this register. This is necessary to combat corruption in Ukraine and ensure transparent and accountable reconstruction of our state.
We will remind that earlier this year the RISE Ukraine Coalition already appealed to the state with a demand to ensure the availability of open data in Ukraine.