Oleksiy Sobolev, deputy head of the Office of the President, has been appointed to Ukraine's state bank supervisory board selection commission, replacing Iryna Mudra.
According to government decree No. 837 dated March 26, Sobolev enters the selection panel as the presidential representative following Mudra's dismissal from the presidential office over corruption allegations.
Mudra, a former deputy head of the Office of the President, received an official corruption suspicion in the high-profile Forest Gump case, which involves the alleged laundering of 150 million hryvnias through state-owned Sense Bank.
The scheme allegedly involved a member of the Sense Bank supervisory board appointed with Mudra's participation, with the funds intended to pay bail for former Minister of Energy and Justice Herman Halushchenko. Mudra remains in custody with bail set at 20 million hryvnias, which had not been posted as of August 27.
Changes to government panel membership
Sobolev, who succeeds Mudra on the selection panel, was appointed deputy head of the Office of the President responsible for economic affairs on July 30. He previously served as minister of economy, environment and agriculture in the cabinet of Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.
The Cabinet of Ministers also replaced its own representative on the selection panel, removing Olena Fil, director of the legal department at the Ministry of Finance.
Fil was replaced by Volodymyr Boholiy, head of the Ministry of Finance department for banking services and coordination of interaction with the National Bank of Ukraine.
Role of the state bank selection commission
The selection commission recruits independent supervisory board members for state-owned lenders by announcing competitions, approving job profiles, reviewing candidate lists, conducting interviews, and submitting candidate nominations to the Cabinet of Ministers.
The panel consists of five members, including three representatives from the Cabinet of Ministers, one from the president, and one from the finance committee of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament.
State-owned lenders accounted for 50.3 percent of net assets across Ukraine's banking sector at the end of the second quarter. All five state institutions, PrivatBank, Oschadbank, Ukreximbank, Ukrgasbank, and Sense Bank, are classified as systemically important.
