Poroshenko proposes a replacement for the head of the National Bank of Ukraine
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko offered the Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) to replace the head of the National Bank of Ulraine(NBU). He suggested dismissing Valeriya Gontaryeva from the post and officially appointing her deputy, Yakiv Smolii to the position.
On the Rada’s website, a page appeared called "Draft resolution on the dismissal of V.O. Gontaryeva from the position of the Chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine." However, the text of the decree is not yet available.
Gontaryeva resigned in May 2017. As the newspaper Dzerkalo Tyzhnia reported, in February, Gontaryeva told Poroshenko and the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde, that she would like to resign.
Poroshenko’s administration claimed that Gontaryeva has long been the target of public discontent. The last straw could have been the public action of the activists from the National Corps party when they brought to the entrance of the National Bank a coffin with a Gontaryeva’s effigy.
Earlier, the head of the National Bank discussed the pressure and the threats exerted on her. In an interview with the Financial Times, she said that she was threatened with physical violence by "one big oligarch."
VoxUkraine economists said that because of the policy of the fixed exchange rate in Ukraine, the relatively high inflation and falling prices for the main export commodities, the hryvnia became more overvalued. According to them, before Gontaryeva took the position, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) wasted away the National Bank’s reserves while trying to rate of the national currency.
According to economists, in the conditions of recession and military conflict in the east of the country, the NBU "did the only thing possible: with reserves close to zero, it was necessary to allow the hryvnia to devalue."
Yakiv Smolii has been the de facto head of the NBU since May 11, 2017. Earlier, he proposed to introduce sanctions against the subsidiaries of Russian banks. The sanctions were implemented on March 23. Sberbank, VTB, BM-Bank, Prominvestbank and VS Bank were subject to the sanctions.