The government has temporarily appointed Oleksiy Tomashuk as the head of the state agency PlayCity after Gennady Novikov was dismissed from this position. Prior to this, Tomashuk served as the CDTO of this agency, that is, he was its deputy head for digital transformation.
The government has temporarily appointed Oleksiy Tomashuk as the head of the state agency PlayCity after Gennady Novikov was dismissed from this position. Prior to this, Tomashuk served as the CDTO of this agency, that is, he was its deputy head for digital transformation.
The appointment is announced in Cabinet Order No. 848-p dated August 26.
The document emphasizes that Tomashuk will exercise such powers until «the appointment of the head of the State Agency of Ukraine PlayCity in accordance with the established procedure.»
Former head of the PlayCity state agency Gennady Novikov noted in a comment to dev.ua that a competition for this position is not yet provided for by law.
«There are no legislative grounds for holding a competition yet. The government can appoint anyone it chooses,» he said.
Why is it appropriate to emphasize the word «while»? Because just yesterday, the Finance Committee of the Verkhovna Rada recommended that the parliament adopt as a basis the revised version of the bill No. 15432-d on the reboot of the PlayCity agency, which provides that the head of this body will be elected on a competitive basis. This was announced the day before by the chairman of the said committee, Danylo Hetmantsev.
In a comment to dev.ua, Hetmantsev stated that there is currently no clear understanding of whether a new PlayCity manager will be appointed through the competition, as it depends on the speed of passage of this bill in parliament.
«I submitted the relevant bill and yesterday the committee recommended it to the Verkhovna Rada. Whether the new head will be appointed through a competition or determined by the Cabinet of Ministers depends on how quickly the Verkhovna Rada considers the bill. We will accelerate it!», Hetmantsev noted.
He expressed hope that this bill will be supported by colleagues, as the deputies are ready. At the same time, according to him, there is currently a very difficult situation with voting on bills that are part of Ukraine’s obligations to international partners, so «the priority is on them.»
First Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy Yaroslav Zheleznyak also expressed hope that a full-fledged head of PlayCity will be elected in a competition after this law comes into force.
«Otherwise it will be some kind of profanation,» he briefly commented on this issue for dev.ua.
Another member of the Finance Committee of the Verkhovna Rada, the first deputy chairman of the Servant of the People faction, Andriy Motovylovets, is also sure that a full-fledged head of PlayCity will be appointed only after a competition, and currently the government can only appoint a head with the status of acting head. He replied to a question from a dev.ua journalist about this.
The head of the Anti-Corruption Expert Group at the PlayCity agency, Taras Kotov, also expressed hope that the competition for the election of the head of the agency will still be held, and the appointment of an acting head is still a «temporary story.»
We also asked Kotov to evaluate the work of the previous PlayCity management. He called such work transparent.
«There were things I disagreed with from various ideological perspectives, but they were clear and well-reasoned,» noted the head of the Anti-Corruption Expert Group at PlayCity.
Another member of this expert group, Executive Director of the Office of Effective Regulation BRDO Oleksiy Dorohan, did not undertake to unequivocally assess the likelihood of holding a competition, saying that «this is a matter for the Cabinet of Ministers.»
At the same time, he confirmed that regardless of the change in PlayCity’s management, the current Anti-Corruption Expert Group at the agency continues to work in its current composition.
As dev.ua wrote, the day before, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the application for the dismissal of Gennady Novikov from the position of head of the state agency PlayCity. The former head of the agency announced this personally, summing up the results of his work since April last year, when he headed the newly created body.
