The Verkhovna Rada on Tuesday passed one of the bills from the so-called "visa-free package" in a first reading to improve the activity of the National Agency for Recovery and Management of Stolen Assets.
This No. 4056 bill on amendments to some laws of Ukraine concerning the fulfillment of recommendations stipulated in the sixth report by the European Commission on the implementation of the action plan to liberalize the visa regime with the European Union for Ukraine was supported by 282 MPs.
The bill introduces changes to the law on the national agency for identification, recovery and management of assets received as a result of corruption and other crimes. These changes authorize the Agency not only to retain assets that have been frozen as part of criminal proceedings, but also to own, use and/or sell or dispose of such assets, including through technological processing or transfer of seized assets to management.
The bill also suggests that the amount of salaries of the agency’s personnel should be sealed legislatively, which will be an additional guarantee of their independence. What is more, the bill proposes elimination of technical discrepancies in the clauses of that law.
