As previously announced, on 16 May at 14:00, ARMA hosted a public presentation of the draft terms of reference for the modernisation of the Unified State Register of Seized Assets (USRSA).

The discussion was attended by representatives of civil society organisations, law enforcement agencies, the business community, the media and other stakeholders.

During the meeting, participants provided interesting suggestions for improving the functioning of the Register. Oleh Vashchenok, Head of ARMA's Department of Digital Transformation, said: 'The main goal of the modernisation is to optimise asset accounting and make it easier for potential asset managers to determine which assets they wish to manage, which will further increase state budget revenues'.

The discussion focused on the reflection in the Register of russian and belarusian assets, involuntarily written-off funds and the specifics of their accounting. Much attention was paid to proposals for photo and video recording of assets.  The participants also discussed the incorporation of the recommendations of Transparency International Ukraine, which were not present at the discussion despite an official invitation. The proposal to reflect control measures and inspections of asset managers and ARMA's orders was discussed. This will be partially reflected in the modernised Register.

A separate block addressed the issues of new sections on asset management and sale, as well as the restoration of a step-by-step review of their condition, valuation, contract and proceeds from management or sale.

Substantive proposals were made by representatives of the Security Service of Ukraine on the protection of information on critical infrastructure assets transferred to ARMA in the interests of the state.

The presentation highlighted the results of the analysis of international experience: "In most European countries, such registers are closed. Out of 11 countries analysed, only 4 (Italy, Romania, Czech Republic and Kazakhstan) have open access to information on seized assets".

ARMA plans to develop a module for analysing the effectiveness of registrars, a system for auto-distributing court decisions among registrars, create dashboards and improve the reporting mechanism.

All this and more will be reflected in the updated Register. The presentation is available here.