Ukrainian state road agency Ukravtodor has appointed Eugene Kuzkin, its acting head, as its new chief, Ukraine’s Ministry of Infrastructure announced on Aug. 27.
Before that, Kuzkin worked as a deputy for Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukravtodor’s former chief and Ukraine’s current Minister of Infrastructure.
Born in Russia, Kuzkin, now 65, served as Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Finance since 2010. He is a renowned Ukrainian economist who’s worked in the finance and tax industries.
Now Kuzkin will lead a state road behemoth, which for many years was mired in corruption and unfulfilled promises to rebuild Ukraine’s crumbling 170,000-kilometer network of roads.
Following president Volodymyr Zelensky’s Big Construction program, Ukravtodor rebuilt 4,000 kilometers of roads in 2020 and is about to build another 4,500 kilometers of roads this year.
With the aid of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Ukravtodor also plans to build charging stations for electric vehicles, aiming to increase the share of electric transport in domestic traffic to 75% by 2030.
To accomplish all of this, Kuzkin will have to fight ubiquitous corruption in Ukraine’s road industry. The state road agency estimates that some 10–15% of road construction funds get stolen through corrupt schemes. Ukravtodor’s head in 2016-2019 Slawomir Novak was arrested on corruption charges in 2020.
If Ukravtodor eliminates corruption, it can attract more money for state projects from big investors like EBRD. For example, it could receive a $900 million loan from the EBRD and European Investment Bank (EIB).
Ukravtodor’s former head Kubrakov told the Kyiv Post in an interview in April that under his governance the changes to make the state road agency more transparent weren’t “sustainable.”
“You can reassign staff as a way of turning things around, but within a few weeks’ time, we found everything was as before, decision making is opaque, contractors aren’t paid, there’s extortion,” Kubrakov said.
