At a meeting on March 17, the Cabinet of Ministers supported the early termination of the powers of Volodymyr Zhmak, chairman of the board of Ukrzaliznytsia. This was announced by the government's representative in the Verkhovna Rada, Vasyl Mokan.
Ivan Yurik, a member of the UZ board, was temporarily assigned the duties of the chairman of the board of Ukrzaliznytsia.
Earlier, Ukrzaliznytsia's supervisory board unanimously supported the resignation of Volodymyr Zhmak as chairman of the company's board. At the time, it was said that this issue would be considered by the Cabinet of Ministers.
Prior to that, there were rumors that the supervisory board of Ukrzaliznytsia was considering the possibility of removing the company's chairman. At the same time, the press service of Ukrzaliznytsia said that there were no grounds for the removal of the chairman.
It is important to note that Volodymyr Zhmak was first appointed to this position on August 26, 2020.
Back then, the Cabinet of Ministers talked about the official's professionalism. However, now there seems to be no communication between the Ukrainian government and the company. After all, this will be the eighth resignation of the chairman of the board in the last 5 years.
So did the official resign and how should we assess this decision of the Cabinet of Ministers? Volodymyr Omelyan, former Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine in 2016-2019, and Viktor Medvid, Director of the consulting company, discussed the details of the topic on the "First Business“.
"As we may recall, in August last year, the government and the Supervisory Board of UZ announced on a positive note the appointment of a highly experienced executive Volodymyr Zhmak as Chairman of the Board. At the time, they said he had an excellent background and great prospects in his new position. But suddenly, in March, he was secretly dismissed. And the newly appointed commissioner, Ivan Yuryk, became the eighth official to hold this position in the last five years. It should be noted that this is the fifth CEO in the last year. That is, there is absolute arbitrariness in the company. And we, on the part of the government and UZ, hear neither the reasons for such appointments nor the arguments for the resignation of officials. Let me remind you that in January of this year, the Temporary Investigation Commission in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine resumed its activities. At that time, I was very hopeful that the parliamentary platform would finally see the real results of the work of UZ, the company's management board and its supervisory board. Including on personnel issues. Unfortunately, this did not happen," said Omelyan.
He said that no one is commenting on these events for the public, which, of course, only goes to the disadvantage of the current government.
"Now everyone has a logical question: "What's going on?". We have not heard an official position from the Ministry of Infrastructure, the relevant agency, the government, or the president, who had previously promised to clean up the mess in this company. We just saw the fact. It seems that there is a struggle for names and flows, but definitely not for reforms in the company itself, which could easily become the number one company in Ukraine. It could have become the economic engine of Ukraine. After all, if the railroad stops, the entire economy will stop," he said.
The expert said that to date, a full-fledged reform in the company has not begun.
"The company has been and still is a breadwinner for political parties, corrupt officials and executives. And here the only question arises as to what exactly our law enforcement agencies should do."The former minister said.
Viktor Medvid added that at the end of the year, certain questions arose to Viktor Zhmak.
“The year is over, and in January he was supposed to report on whether the company was doing well. But given that Zhmak was appointed only in August and was actually implementing the plan of his predecessors in the company, it is obvious that it would be logical to make an assessment based on the results of Q1 2021. Accordingly, it was necessary to wait until March to draw objective conclusions about the activities of UZ. But this was not done. Now we are witnessing violations, both in the procedure of Zhmak's dismissal and in other aspects. I am sure that after that the official will sue the Cabinet of Ministers and be reinstated. However, the question remains how this will affect the company. I do not believe that such an imbalance in work can bring any benefits."The expert said.
We remind you that at different times, members of the Supervisory Board received from UAH 1.5 to 14 million in salary.
This is how the well-known anti-corruption activist Serhiy Leshchenko spent four months of his work last year earned UAH 1.4 million. Chairman of the Supervisory Board Shevka Adjuner received UAH 13.8 million for the year and a half.
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