President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky stated that he does not intend to mediate dialogue between individual members of the Cabinet of Ministers and people’s deputies with the head of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Andriy Pyshnyi, and is not initiating any steps towards his replacement.
“I have not initiated any steps regarding his replacement. This is an independent institution. Pyshnyi is the head of the National Bank. He has complex relations with the Government, with members of parliament. Not just with this Government, but in general – with governmental positions. This is because the position of the National Bank under him and the position of the Ministry of Finance are very different on many issues. And in difficult moments between them, I was asked to resolve the situation, and I resolved it all these years. But now, when various information campaigns have started, which aim to influence something, I will no longer participate in mediating dialogue between these institutions,” Zelensky said during a conversation with journalists on Sunday.
“Let them understand that they need to think about stability in the state, not about information campaigns,” the head of state explained his position.
As previously reported, the head of the parliamentary committee on finance, tax, and customs policy, Danylo Hetmantsev, is demanding Pyshnyi’s resignation, linking it to the published information regarding a probable money laundering scheme at the state-owned Sense Bank.
The deputy interprets Pyshnyi’s current reaction as confirmation that the NBU head knew about the scheme earlier and could have stopped it. Among other arguments, Hetmantsev cited Pyshnyi’s connections with the deputy head of the President’s Office, Iryna Mudra, and Vasyl Veselyi, as well as the personal ties of six top officials of Sense Bank with the NBU head.
On Wednesday, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) disclosed information about the “Forrest Gump” special operation, within which suspicions were announced to individuals who, according to the investigation, legalized UAH 150 million through Sense Bank with the assistance of the head of the supervisory board and the chairman of the board for paying bail for the ex-minister of energy, Herman Halushchenko.
According to Pyshnyi, the National Bank has issued a corresponding demand to the bank’s shareholder to immediately take measures to terminate Gladishenko’s powers as a member of the supervisory board and elect a new member of the supervisory board. Regarding the entire supervisory board, the published materials provide grounds to believe that Gladishenko’s self-removal was merely formal, and in fact, he continued to influence the bank’s activities, the NBU head noted.
“The inability of the supervisory board to adequately respond to this situation casts doubt on the ability of its members to ensure proper control over the bank’s activities and effectively perform their functions,” Pyshnyi argued for initiating an open administrative proceeding.
He emphasized that the National Bank will investigate all newly discovered facts and cooperate with law enforcement agencies, and work on other decisions is ongoing.