2022-10-06T16:43:00+03:00 Politics 2024-05-15T05:33:46+03:00

Ukrainian news

Ukrainian news

The reason for Kyrylo Shevchenko's resignation is pressure from the President's Office, says Forbes

The reason for Kyrylo Shevchenko's resignation is pressure from the President's Office, says Forbes

Despite the high level of stability of the national financial system achieved while Kyrylo Shevchenko was in charge of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), the President’s Office is not satisfied with the excessive independence of the NBU head concerning regulatory and personnel policy. Besides, amid the controversy with the head of the Office of the President, the head of the NBU has worsened his health problems, says Forbes in its article “There was an opportunity not to go”. NBU head Kyrylo Shevchenko resigns. For what reasons and why this is not good news”.

“Shevchenko does have significant health problems. However, almost all of Forbes’ interlocutors point out that contradictions on a number of issues and permanent pressure from the Office of the President played a crucial role. The question of his resignation was raised in the Office of the President back in the middle of last year. At that time, interlocutors affiliated with Bankova told about tainted relations between Shevchenko and Head of the Office Andrii Yermak. The head of the NBU allegedly refused to approve a number of personnel appointments proposed by Bankova”, says the article.

Forbes names the former head of the Oshchadbank Andrii Pyshnyi as the main contender to replace Kyrylo Shevchenko, who, unlike his predecessor, has an established communication with the head of the Office of the President.

According to the article, four high-ranking officials, with whom Forbes spoke on the right of anonymity, call the former head of the state Oshchadbank Andrii Pyshnyi the most likely candidate to head the National Bank. He has a good relationship with the head of the Office of the President and is a member of the Yarmak-McFaul group on sanctions against Russia.

At the same time, as the publication notes, the resignation of Kyrylo Shevchenko will be negatively perceived by some Ukrainian MPs and international partners of our country due to the threat to the NBU’s independence that will arise after the departure of its current head.

“Shevchenko’s resignation right now is negatively perceived by some deputies and causes concern among Ukraine's international partners. The main concern is that the National Bank remains the only really independent state institution in the economic bloc, its destruction or weakening can cost the Ukrainian economy a lot,” says the author of the article.

Forbes notes that the NBU under Shevchenko remained a structure independent of political decisions, this ensuring stability of the national financial system during the Coronavirus crisis and the full-scale war with Russia.

“The banking sector ended the first post-pandemic year of 2021 with a record profit of UAH 77.5 billion. In August 2021, Ukraine’s international reserves reached a nine-year high of $31.6 billion. Even despite the war, they remain quite high - $25.4 billion on September 1, 2022. Inflation, which the NBU is guided by, is much lower than it would have been under such stressful conditions – 23.8% in August," notes the publication.

At the same time, as stated in the article, the reluctance to finance the budget deficit through emission was one of the reasons for dissatisfaction with Kyrylo Shevchenko in the Office of the President.

“Even when Shevchenko was appointed, there were fears that he would not be loyal to Bankova. The NBU under Shevchenko did not play along with the government and Bankova in financing the state budget during the Coronavirus crisis of 2020. Now the National Bank ‘prints’ money for the needs of the Ministry of Finance (the government cannot use international aid to finance the army), but sometimes directly criticizes the government for shortsightedness and desire to solve all current problems by using a money machine,” noted in the article.