Independent member of the Supervisory Board of Ukrnafta Andriy Boytsun, Head of the nomination and remuneration committee, has criticized the decision of the Supervisory Board made on May 20 to suspend the competition for the selection of the board's chairperson, which has already been completed by 95%, and will try to convince the supervisory board and bring the competition to the end.

"I look forward to resolving the issue in favor of continuing the selection. This is in the interests of the company. Therefore, I will try to convince the supervisory board to hold a meeting, bring the competition to the end, and show the whole world that we had the most transparent competition in the world. As a result, the best CEO will be selected. It does not matter what his last name is, the main thing is for the company to show excellent results," Boytsun told Interfax-Ukraine.

In his opinion, there is no need to stop the competition due to coronavirus (COVID-19), when the world is amid easing lockdown, appoint Hez as chairman of the board for an indefinite period and with uncertain conditions, who was acting board chairman for more than a year, and then hold a new competition which will require new expenses and trust in which will be undermined.

Boytsun said that the supervisory board rejected his proposal to conduct an interview between the selected five candidates and Hez before the decision is made.

The head of the committee said that according to a press release issued by Ukrnafta without approval of the Supervisory Board, it is expected that the working conditions for employment of Hez as chairman of the board will be agreed. According to Boytsun, the meeting of the Supervisory Board should be held this week, which may entrust the nomination committee to develop the essential conditions of the contract with Hez.

Boytsun also said that as part of the CEO selection competition, recruiter company Boyden (with four offices in Houston (the United States, two partners), London (Great Britain), Stavanger (Norway) and Kyiv), which provided services to Ukrnafta, was initially selected at a separate competition amog six candidates.

As a result, recruiters submitted the so-called long list of 179 candidates, including internal ones, from which they then made a prioritized list of 26 candidates. The competition also examined the former and current management of Ukrnafta (including Hez), as well as two candidates proposed by the company.