Oleksandr Subotenko, who previously served as head of the State Environmental Inspection of Ukraine (SEI) sector for cooperation with local self-government, has been appointed acting head of the SEI.
This was announced with indignation by Ukrainian MP Olena Kryvoruchkina on her Facebook page. She is the deputy chair of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Environmental Policy and Nature Management.
The MP considers this appointment to be extremely inappropriate and one that jeopardizes the results of many years of work with international partners in the environmental field.
Olena Kryvoruchkina was particularly outraged that no one discussed this candidacy with the members of the eco-committee. She also wanted to know who else was considered for this position.
The deputy also expressed concern that the newly appointed acting head of the DEI would not be able to competently and professionally manage the millions of euros that deputies had raised for the environmental inspection from international partners. She stressed that Oleksandr Subotenko has neither managerial nor environmental experience.
"This hurts me because I have been exercising parliamentary control over the state environmental control system for many years and am responsible for its reform. And I do it damn well. I cooperate with UNEP, UNDP, OSCE, IMPEL, OECD, and bring key issues of Ukrainian ecology to the highest international level — so what? So that one ill-advised decision could undo years of work? I have raised millions of euros from partners for environmental inspection (project implementation, updating of material and technical resources, research), and I want to understand what the newly appointed manager of environmental inspection will do with all this without having any management experience (and I emphasize again – environmental experience either),” she wrote.
Former Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine Roman Abramovsky, in his comments on Kryvoruchkina's post, noted that against the backdrop of the Ministry of Environmental Protection joining the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine, all other decisions are derivative.
Former Deputy Minister of the Environment (2020-2022) Mykhailo Khorev also noted in his comments that, according to the law, any category A or B employee (if they are the head of a separate structural unit) can perform these duties.
“And the government constantly appoints lawyers, accountants, or office managers as acting officials in various central executive bodies,” he wrote.
Khoriev noted that, in theory, the duties should indeed be assigned to the existing deputy, but the previous acting official did not have category A, and everyone was satisfied with that.
“But if deputies, the public, or anyone else has a candidate, then it would probably be right to propose them and defend them accordingly,” he concluded.
Earlier, EcoPolitic reported that the environmental inspectorate did not find any violations at the Runa mountain pasture, where the controversial construction of a wind farm is underway.
