Deputy Governor of the National Bank Kateryna Rozhkova has been stripped of most of her responsibilities at the bank weeks after she was reprimanded for talking to media.
Rozhkova — one of the two remaining members of the six-person team left at the central bank after the previous governor resigned due to political pressure — was barred from carrying out her major responsibilities, the National Bank stated on Oct. 20.
According to the statement, Rozhkova’s responsibilities have been transferred to NBU Governor Kyrylo Shevchenko, who, among other things, will now be responsible for on-site inspections, licensing, financial monitoring and the supervision of the non-banking financial services market — Rozhkova’s previous duties.
Now Rozhkova has only a few tasks: She’s responsible for the department of methodology regulation of financial institutions, the department of consumer protection in financial services and the department of the NBU’s corporate pension fund.
This decision came days after rumors about the NBU planning to fire Rozhkova started spreading in the media and weeks after she and Dmytro Sologub, the other remaining NBU team member from under the previous governor, were reprimanded for talking to the media, including to the Kyiv Post.
The NBU states that the change is meant to redistribute duties among the central bank deputies. The changes mentioned in the statement, however, affect only Rozhkova.
The International Monetary Fund, on which Ukraine relies for lending, disapproved of the move, media outlet Novoe Vremya reported, citing anonymous sources.
Shevchenko, who supported reprimanding Rozhkova and Sologub on Oct. 6, took office in mid-July. His predecessor Yakiv Smolii resigned due to “systemic political pressure” in June. Since then, the bank saw a wave of resignations, including deputy governors, department heads and other staff.
Sources in the banking sector, including some of the NBU’s former employees, had told the Kyiv Post that they were disheartened because the bank’s new leadership attacked their prior achievements and because the NBU Council kept trying to meddle in their work. Most stopped short of saying that Shevchenko straight up told them to leave.
The old team Rozhkova is part of may have irritated many back in 2014-2016, when the central bank took 100 insolvent banks off the market. Since then, many politically connected people have reportedly wanted them out.
