Source: Government may dismiss Russian Post CEO before July 1

MOSCOW, Feb 2 (PRIME) -- The government may dismiss Dmitry Strashnov from his position of Russian Post CEO before July 1, when his contract expires, and one of the probable candidates for the post is Sergei Kulikov, a management board member of state industrial corporation Rostec, a government official familiar with the matter told PRIME late on Wednesday.

“Strashnov may leave before July 1. One of the most probable candidates (to replace him) is Kulikov from Rostec,” the official said, also naming Deputy Communications and Mass Media Minister Mikhail Yevrayev as one of the other candidates.

The prosecutor’s office said in November 2016 that it wants to initiate a criminal case against Strashnov and two heads of the communications ministry’s departments on an allegedly illegal payment of a 95.4 million ruble bonus. The ministry approved the bonus in June 2015 on results of work of Russian Post for 2014. The amount was calculated on the basis of documents submitted by the company, including a statement on a net profit of 1.2 billion rubles.

The prosecutors’ investigation revealed that the net profit had been formed thanks to a 5.4 billion ruble financing of the company’s activities from the budget, which made it possible to cover losses of Russian Post, which exceeded 4 billion rubles.

Yekaterina Osadchaya, director of the external communications department at the communications ministry, said that the ministry never comments on personnel appointments.

Kommersant business daily reported that Kulikov’s appointment was coordinated by the Federal Security Service and the presidential administration, and he already had two meetings with Communications Minister Nikolai Nikiforov to discuss the appointment. Kulikov has to introduce a new management model to Russian Post, reincorporate it as a joint-stock company and privatize it, the business daily said.

But the candidate was not coordinated with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and his deputy Arkady Dvorkovich, who has his own candidates for the post, including his aide Alexander Ustinov.

But a source in Russian Post told PRIME that the information on Strashnov’s dismissal is only rumors. “Rumors about the dismissal of our CEO has been emerging every quarter since he came to the company (in 2013). It looks like someone’s wishful thinking. We don’t pay attention to them,” the person said.

“Results of our work speak for themselves: the package delivery volume soared tenfold, we are buried up to the neck in hard work. Everyone is operating as usual, we have no time to chill out.”

(60.3099 rubles – U.S. $1)

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