Petro Poroshenko will have a new team

Photo: wikipedia.org

The Presidential Administration under Petro Poroshenko has begun forming a new team to replace officials that left for the Verkhovna Rada or the Cabinet of Ministers. According to information of Capital, the structure of the office of the president will soon be changed and the functions of its deputy heads will be expanded.

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President Poroshenko dismissed Yuriy Kosyuk from the post of First Head of the Presidential Administration (PA), according to the decree posted on the president’s official website yesterday morning. According to the following decree, Poroshenko appointed Kosyuk as his part-time advisor. “Kosyuk accomplished his work and left. His assistance was beneficial, but he is a businessman, not a civil servant,” a source in the PA told Capital.

As a reminder, Kosyuk joined the PA in July 2014 and was responsible for the material and technical provision and logistics of law enforcement bodies. A source of the publication in the PA informed that initially Kosyuk was engaged in supplying the army, restoration of the work of the state-run company Ukroboronprom and reorientation of its production on the domestic market.
After that Kosyuk personally financed the working group of foreign experts that drafted anti-corruption reform and the creation the National Anti-corruption Bureau.

Vice Chairman of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc (PPB) Ihor Hryniv, who prior to the elections was the assistant of the head of the PA, assured Capital that Kosyuk expressed his desire to leave the administration a long time ago as “he did not feel that this was his place”. He said new candidates are being sought to fill the vacancies in the presidential administration.

“A candidate is being sought to fill my position. His name is not being disclosed as Poroshenko, who at the moment is on a working visit to Singapore, has the last word,” said Kosyuk.

After Kosyuk was dismissed the head of the PA Borys Lozhkin was left without any first deputies. Last week the Verkhovna Rada appointed Hennadiy Zubko to the post of vice premier and minister of regional development and construction. Zubko handled such issues when he managed regional policy and the work of the oblast state administrations in the PA. Noteworthy is that earlier there were two first assistants and five regular assistants of the head of the PA.

Search for an organizational executor for the president

Peoples’ deputy Vitaliy Chepynoha (PPB) believes that the departure of two first assistants of Lozhkin from the PA is testimony to forthcoming changes in the structure and functions of the administration. “In my opinion, there will be changes. For this reason, I am not naming any new individuals. The administration is constantly being reorganized,” he said.

Peoples’ deputy Anatoliy Matvienko (PPB), who according to information that Capital has is as close ally of the president, confirmed that very soon functional changes will be made in the structure of the PA. He says that the obligations that were put on the shoulders of first assistants will be reviewed. “I think they should be delegated more rights than obligations. At the moment there is no organizational executor in the PA, which is why Poroshenko must independently raise many issues,” Matvienko specified. He added that there are potential candidates for this position in the president’s team, but he refused to name them.

Adviser to the president on issues of volunteer movements Yuriy Byryukov confirmed that over the period of the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) he did not discuss issues of provision of security forces with Kosyuk. “All issues were decided directly with the president. I do not personally know Kosyuk, so how could we have possibly worked together?” It is difficult to predict how the situation will change. If it does, it is not clear how,” he told Capital.

Former assistant secretary of the president Ihor Popov, who was elected a people’s deputy on the list of the Radical Party, says that Poroshenko is currently building a new team after Ihor Hryniv and Iryna Friz, who are close to him, won seats in the parliament. Popov believes that the absence of new deputies in the PA is associated first and foremost with the shortage of personnel on the president’s team.

“For half a year we do not have a secretary of the NSDC and a whole host of ambassadors. This is worthy of attention instead of the powers of first assistants,” Popov stressed. He says the new first assistants of the head of the PA will be reoriented towards issues of national security and the national economy.