"The Ministry of
Infrastructure of Ukraine has initiated a maritime industry reform,"
Volodymyr Omelyan, the Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine, said.
According to the Minister,
reforming the state enterprise Ukrainian Seaports Authority (SE USPA) is the
key in the maritime industry reform.
"Despite the repeated
attempt of the Government and the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine to
normalize the work of SE USPA, this state enterprise has remained to be a model
of inefficiency, corruption and abuse.
There are also many questions concerning
the management of USPA. In addition, no such resistance there has been
anywhere, as from USPA management, against any proposals of the Ministry to
organize the work of USPA. All our resolutions are being blocked or ignored.
Therefore, we must change USPA management, which will be our first step in the
comprehensive maritime industry reform," Volodymyr Omelyan said.
He noted that respective
changes had been announced at the beginning of December 2016. "Perhaps,
this caused the management, which we are currently changing, to issue to
themselves individual bonuses in the amount of UAH 700 thousand to 1.5 million
in December 2016. And these are mere officially issued bonuses. We can only
imagine the extent of abuses at the state enterprise," the Minister of
Infrastructure urged.
The Minister also noted that
in order to facilitate the work of USPA, the Ministry has appointed Mr SerhiyGronsky as
its acting CEO. "This is a temporary measure to establish a normal
business dialogue between the Ministry and USPA, as well as to stop the abuses
that have been occurring in the company. This week, there will be appointed a
new acting CEO of USPA, Mr Raivis Veckagans."
The Minister of Infrastructure
of Ukraine stressed that changing USPA management is one of the stages of the
maritime industry upgrading. "The comprehensive reform provides for the
establishment of the Maritime Administration, which will take over the full
role of USPA. In addition, there will be conducted significant optimization of
the company’s structure and staff. The key tasks are changing the
management, reforming, and corporatization as required by Ukrainian
legislation."
Raivis Veckagans is
a citizen of Latvia, with over a 16-year successful experience in management of
companies in transportation and logistics sectors, shipping and financial
services. He held the positions of a member of the Management Board,
Vice-President of JSC Latvian Shipping Company, a member of the Board of Rigas Centralais Terminals,
the largest bulk and general cargo processing port terminal in the Baltic
States, Chairman of the Board at Riga Container Terminal Ltd.
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