Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed an executive order relieving of duty Ukroboronprom General Director Roman Romanov.
“To relieve of duty Roman Romanov, the General Director of the Ukroboronprom State Concern,” Executive Order No. 26/2018 posted on the president’s website on February 12 evening said.
Romanov announced his resignation on February 12.
“I made my decision to leave my post as the head of the State Concern Ukroboronprom. I wrote a resignation letter last year and I hope that President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko will support my decision,” Romanov said in the statement posted on the company’s website.
“Throughout the years of my work at Ukroboronprom, the media kept reminding me that I had come to the State Concern from business. It’s true. And I believe that every man must devote certain period of his life to serve his country: Past 3.5 years were my service,” Romanov said.
“I am grateful to each of the 80,000 employees of the SC Ukroboronprom, who believed in country’s defense industry revival. I am confident that my successor will continue this course. And I will smoothly hand over all the responsibilities, so that this transition in no way affects the efficiency of the work of the Concern,” he said.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman called for resignation of the Ukroboronprom head over the failure to fulfill the government order and pay salary debts to employees of Ukroboronprom Mykolaiv shipyard at a government meeting on December 27, 2017.
Romanov refused to step down and said that the resolution of the salary debt problem required quality decisions of the government, rather than the search for ‘scapegoats’. The root of the problem is the decision made in February 2015 to stop compensating the shipyard for maintaining the unfinished Ukrayina cruiser, and the fact that the concern’s numerous suggestions pertaining to the solution of this problem were unanswered by the government. Romanov said he was not ready to pay those debts with Ukroboronprom’s funds because that would be illegal.
The government urged Poroshenko to dismiss Romanov in January 2018 and said it expected the recently reshuffled Ukroboronprom Supervisory Board led by Ihor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute Rector Mykhailo Zgurovsky to nominate his replacement.
