Foreign experts can play an important role in the transparency of the competition for the head of the Deposit Guarantee Fund - political expert

The International Monetary Fund requires Ukraine to develop a procedure for holding an open competition for the position of the Managing Director of the Deposit Guarantee Fund. The main requirement for the procedure may be the involvement of foreign experts in the commission, as they are the ones who pay the main attention to the impeccable reputation of the candidates. This opinion was expressed in an exclusive commentary to UNN by political scientist Ihor Reiterovych.

Context

In September, an IMF mission will start working in Ukraine in preparation for the fifth review of the Extended Fund Facility program. The expert discussions will focus on Ukraine's implementation of the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies. One of the points of the document is to develop a procedure and hold a competition for the head of the DGF in the spring of 2025.

I don't think that there should be any additional requirements for this particular competition, except perhaps for truly international experts who can be involved in the selection of this person, and then primarily in terms of compliance with the principles of integrity. This is an important point, as a rule, this is a key issue that everyone pays attention to and tries to resolve in some way

According to him, the most important thing now is to make a decision to return to open competitions for the positions of heads of state bodies, because during the legal regime of martial law, almost all competitions have been suspended, and appointments are made without competition. 

"And our partners have repeatedly pointed out that we need to gradually change this, but the situation has not changed yet. So I hope that it will change in the future," Reiterowicz said.

At the same time, he said, the most important point to pay attention to during the competitive selection for the position of Managing Director of the Deposit Guarantee Fund should be the impeccable reputation of the candidates. 

This should be a person to whom there will be no questions from the point of view of integrity. What is meant by integrity: the first point is a way of life that does not contradict the current legislation and does not raise any questions from the point of view of both legal and moral and ethical standards, and the second point is the absence of any informal ties with any companies or people that are related, for example, to the area in which this person will work. This is the key point

According to him, the head of the DGF should be a person who is professional on the one hand and has no conflict of interest on the other. "This can be determined primarily by foreign experts, who, as a rule, pay attention to this first of all," the political scientist noted.

Recall

Following the dismissal of Svitlana Rekrut as Managing Director of the Deposit Guarantee Fund, her deputy, Olga Bilay, is acting as the head. According to media reports, despite the IMF's demands, the Fund's Administrative Board plans to appoint a new head in a closed session. Currently, two main candidates are being considered - Bilay and Pavlo Polarush, head of the National Bank's Department for Work with Troubled Assets, who is called by journalists the main contender for this post. 

According to media reports, Polarush repeatedly traveled abroad after the start of Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine. In particular, journalists reported that in November 2022, he received permission to leave the country from the odious former Deputy Minister of Defense, who is currently a suspect in corruption crimes. The permit was allegedly issued to Polarush to travel abroad in an elite Lexus car to receive humanitarian aid. However, it is not yet known on what grounds Polarush traveled abroad from February to November 2022.

Member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Transport and Infrastructure Mykola Velychkovych believes that law enforcement should investigate Polarush's travels abroad. A member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security and Defense, Hennadiy Kasai , does not rule outthat Polarush may have problems during the special vetting process as a candidate for the position of managing director of the Deposit Guarantee Fund.