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Metsger replaces the scandal tainted former CEO Oleksandr Hrytsenko who was arrested by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) on November 16 on corruption charges.
Rumours that Metsger will head the bank surfaced in late November as media reported on his friendship with President Zelenskiy. Last year, the president appointed Yehven’s wife, Yulia Metsger, to the supervisory board of another state bank, Privatbank that was nationalised in 2016.
The plan to rapidly appoint Metsger as Ukreximbank CEO was stymied by US citizen Steven Fisher, who was on the bank’s supervisory board and led the process to find and appoint a new CEO, and who disapproved of Metsger candidacy.
Thanks to Fisher, Metsger was not initially short-listed to be among the three CEO candidates in early December, which was eventually cancelled.
Fisher was ousted at the end of the same month on December 27 by the Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers that is controlled by Zelenskiy and fired as a member of Ukreximbank's board without explanation. The bank’s board then approved Metsger’s candidacy as CEO on February 6.
“This appointment confirms nothing has changed in the corporate governance practices of state banks: a friend of ex-President Poroshenko has been replaced by a friend of the new president as Ukreximbank CEO,” Alexander Paraschiy of Concorde Capital said in a note. “Meanwhile, the corporate governance reform of state banks, initiated in mid-2018 and completed in the last days of Poroshenko’s presidency (when six out of nine state banks’ supervisory board members were appointed as “independent members”), has been already criticized by President Zelenskiy, who complained on March 4 that “Ukrainian citizens are feeling like a national minority in the boards of state companies.” Such comments reflect Zelenskiy's new politics of abandoning his lip service to Western reforms (and whatever little commitment he gave them) and full embrace of populism.”
2.5​ ​How well prepared is Ukraine to deal with coronavirus?
Coronavirus (COVID-19) is now well established in Ukraine, but the epidemic there has only just got under way. Following a major economic crisis in 2014 how well prepared is Ukraine to absorb the economy shock that is clearly on the way?
As of March 20 Ukraine had 14 confirmed cases, including three children, and three fatalities. Most of the infected were clustered in the Chernivtsi region where there were 10 cases followed by two inKyiv and surrounding region and another in the Zhytomyr region.
So far coronavirus has been a problem imported into the country by Ukrainians returning from abroad, but with the outbreak in Chernivtsi the virus is now a domestic problem and the number of infections area bound to soar.
The government has been fast to act and on March 20 voted in a raft of
9​ UKRAINE Country Report​ April 2018 ​ ​www.intellinews.com