Maryna Bezrukova is to continue to lead the Defense Procurement Agency. Without the approval of the Ministry of Defense

24 January 16:35

The Supervisory Board of the Defense Procurement Agency of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine has extended the contract with Maryna Bezrukova. An additional agreement to extend it for one year was signed by the chairman of the Supervisory Board. This was reported by the Defense Procurement Agency, Komersant ukrainskyi reports.

Judging by the following explanations to this decision, it was made without the approval of the Ministry of Defense.

In particular, the report emphasizes that according to the Law “On Management of State Property Objects”, approval of the terms of the contract with the head is the exclusive competence of the supervisory board. Accordingly, the term of the contract is one of its conditions, which the supervisory board is authorized to review. The current version of the Agency’s charter does not oblige the Supervisory Board to coordinate its decisions on changing the terms of the contract of the head (including the prolongation of the agreement) with the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

Commenting on this decision, the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Agency Yuriy Dzhyhyr said that “in the conditions of war it is very important to maintain continuity in the work of the Defense Procurement Agency, because it directly affects the stability of supplies to the Armed Forces and systemic steps to reform the defense procurement system.”

“Therefore, guided by the exclusive rights of the Supervisory Board to change the terms of the contract of the head, which are provided for by both the Law and the current version of the Charter of the Defense Procurement Agency, an additional agreement was concluded to extend the contract of the current director for 1 year,” said the Chairman of the Supervisory Board.

Maryna Bezrukova, Director of the Defense Procurement Agency, emphasized that “this decision of the Supervisory Board does not concern a specific manager, but the Defense Procurement Agency as an institution, its subjectivity.”

It is worth reminding that a few days ago, the Supervisory Board of the Defense Procurement Agency unanimously decided to extend the contract with the current director and submitted a recommendation to the Minister of Defense to extend the contract with Maryna Bezrukova. Later , the media reported that the Ministry of Defense did not approve the Supervisory Board’s decision to extend the contract.

Cooperation between the Agency and the Ministry of Defense was not perfect

In a recent interview with the UP Weekly program, Maryna Bezrukova, Director of the Defense Procurement Agency , noted that much more could have been done in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense. At the same time, she said, there were no clear claims that could be worked with.

A few days ago, Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, wrote about the attitude of the Defense Ministry to cooperation with the Agency’s leadership on Facebook. She claims that at the end of September 2024, before the establishment of an independent supervisory board of the Defense Procurement Agency, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov wanted to appoint MP Oleksandra Ustinova as the Agency’s director instead of Maryna Bezrukova.

“Together with Vitaliy Shabunin, I participated in a conversation where the Minister under Oleksandra announced to us his decision to dismiss both Maryna Bezrukova and his deputy Dmytro Klimenkov because they were ‘not doing a good job’. Instead, he proposed to appoint Ustinova as the director of the plant,” Daria Kaleniuk wrote.

According to her, in accordance with the rules of corporate governance, an independent supervisory board should have been appointed at the PJSC first, which should decide whether the current director is doing a good job or not, and elect and appoint a new director if there are grounds for that.

The Supervisory Board of the Defense Procurement Agency began its work in December. And in January, it started making the personnel decisions mentioned above. By the way, the members of the Supervisory Board of the Agency also decided to initiate a comprehensive audit of the Agency’s activities, with the involvement of the NATO International Board of Auditors.

Василевич Сергій
Editor