Vladimir Pershin
Volodymyr Pershin, director of the Kyivtransparkservice municipal enterprise, has resigned, effectively driving the enterprise under his control to the brink of bankruptcy. Apparently, problems with employee salaries will begin as early as November, and Kyivtransparkservice will end 2015 with losses of 5–5,5 million hryvnias. Things could have been different if the Kyiv mayor had not ignored the opinion of the relevant City Council commission and the Kyiv City State Administration's Department of Transport, which had long demanded Pershin's dismissal.
Oleksiy Hrytsenko, deputy chairman of the Kyiv City Council's standing committee on transport and communications, announced Volodymyr Pershin's dismissal today on his Facebook page.
"The head of Kyivtransparkservice was fired. He then did everything he could to ensure an open competition for a new director was held, involving members of parliament and the public. This position was confirmed to me by Igor Nikonov (First Deputy Chairman of the Kyiv City State Administration – KV) and Oleksandr Kozlovskyi (Head of the Kyiv City State Administration's Department of Transport Infrastructure – KV)," he noted.
According to a knowledgeable source in the Kyiv City State Administration's Department of Transport Infrastructure, Volodymyr Pershin has submitted his resignation. Therefore, it appears he will be dismissed in the same manner he laid off the company's employees four times in 2015—voluntarily and involuntarily. Artem Ivanov, the company's first deputy director, will remain acting director of Kyivtransparkservice for the time being.
KV's source also reported the catastrophic financial state of Kyivtransparkservice. According to him, the company's losses for the first eight months of this year reached UAH 3,2 million. By comparison, the company's losses for all of 2014 amounted to UAH 959.
“Kievtransparkservice will end 2015 with a loss of 5–5,5 million UAH, which, in total, will lead to the bankruptcy of the enterprise by the end of the fourth quarter of 2015 – the beginning of the first quarter of 2016,” a KV source in the Kyiv City State Administration reported.
At the same time, the municipal enterprise systematically underpaid the parking fee to the city budget: in the second quarter of 2015 alone, arrears of approximately 3 million hryvnias were recorded. These funds allowed the enterprise to avoid delays in employee salaries. However, everyone understands that this is a dead end. At the end of the year, when the budget arrears "surface," officials will either have to "correct the reports" by closing a significant portion of the parking lots, or provide additional subsidies to the enterprise from the city budget, which would require a corresponding decision by the Kyiv City Council.
Naturally, any choice would lead to a public scandal, which the Kyiv leadership is trying by hook or by crook to postpone until after the elections.
The situation is further aggravated by the fact that the minimum wage, which is linked to the parking fee, will increase on November 1.
According to Andrey Vorobyov, former director of Kyivtransparkservice, the chairman of the Association for the Protection of the Rights of Car Owners, Entrepreneurs, Parking Lots, and Parking Lot Workers, the company's overall costs will increase by 11%. However, revenue growth is still not expected; on the contrary, its decline will accelerate.
"During the summer months, KP managed to reduce its losses compared to the first half of the year, which totaled 2,7 million hryvnias. This was achieved by collecting illegal tolls for vehicles entering Hydropark and Trukhanov Island. However, the season is coming to an end, and there will be nothing to plug the hole," Mr. Vorobyov explained to KV.
This means that salary arrears at the company could begin as early as November, and by the end of the year, it faces the real prospect of bankruptcy. It's worth noting that, after the appointment of current director Vladimir Pershin, KV assumed that this was precisely the purpose of this personnel decision.
This likely explains Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko's long-standing reluctance to fire the manager, whose losses at the budget-forming enterprise have skyrocketed and who is on the verge of devouring city funds that are insufficient for kindergartens, schools, and hospitals.
For a long time, the capital's mayor was unconvinced even by the arguments of the Kyiv City State Administration's Department of Transport Infrastructure and the Kyiv City Council's relevant commission, which, back in mid-July, demanded that he part ways with Volodymyr Pershin and hold an open competition to fill the position of head of Kyivtransparkservice.
According to a KV source in the Kyiv City State Administration's Transport Department, Mr. Pershin felt no threat to his position during this time. He confidently told his subordinates that he had no intention of leaving, claiming he had repeatedly offered to resign, but they "persuaded him to stay."
Meanwhile, the actions of the director of Kyivtransparkservice were clearly leading the company to bankruptcy. The only way the director of Kyivtransparkservice used to cut costs was through regular layoffs, which had already occurred four times this year. However, this didn't stop this prominent representative of the "new honest government," under the personal protection of Vitali Klitschko, from inflating Kyivtransparkservice's other expenses, sometimes to ridiculous levels.
"During the staff reduction, the required procedure was not followed; the company's employees were dismissed ostensibly at their own request. It even seemed strange: people were working, and then, bam! – twenty employees suddenly wanted to quit. Literally any day now, another 80% of the company's office workers are expected to suddenly 'want' to leave their jobs. But for some reason, not a single one of the three deputy directors, whose salaries are significantly higher than those of regular employees, has shown any desire to leave," noted KV's source.
Alexander Zvorsky, KyivVlast
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