Mustafa Nayem informed that he is resigning as the head of the Infrastructure Restoration Agency of Ukraine

Mustafa Nayem informed that he is leaving the position of the head of the State Agency for Reconstruction and Development of Infrastructure.

According to him, he himself decided to resign due to "systemic obstacles that do not allow him to effectively carry out his duties."

Nayem also published a photo of his resignation letter.

"Today, I wrote a resignation letter and said goodbye to the Agency team and the heads of the Recovery Services in the regions. Understanding the responsibility that rests on our team, I will perform my duties until the government decides on my dismissal and I hand over the affairs to my successors. I am ready to do everything that depends on me so that the Agency continues the implementation of projects that are critically important for the country. Currently, our entire team and Recovery Services in the regions continue to work as usual," Nayem writes.

He claims that since November of last year, the Agencyʼs team began to face constant opposition, resistance and the creation of artificial obstacles.

According to him, the Agencyʼs budget for road restoration and maintenance projects was completely canceled. He added that he is aware of the limited resources and the importance of military spending, but "the cancellation of funds for infrastructure maintenance will inevitably affect, first of all, the condition of defense roads and, as a result, all military logistics." According to him, if this does not change, Ukraine will face complications in military logistics and export of products next season.

"We began to have a ʼnightmareʼ with the bureaucracy, when documents for the payment of defense structures, fortifications, or restoration were approved by the government for months, returned six or eight times with ridiculous comments, delayed for several months, and some have not been agreed to this day," says Nayem.

According to him, just now, for the third month, the government has refused to pay almost €150 million, which the state borrowed from the European Investment Bank for critically important projects, in particular, water supply and energy protection.

"All this has consequences, which I have repeatedly officially reported. Untimely payment of contractors undermines trust in the state; the delay in financing slows down, and in some areas, completely stops construction work, and this is a loss of confidence in the market, local authorities, and citizens. But the main thing is that all this has a negative impact on the countryʼs defense capability, cargo logistics, protection of critical infrastructure and export of our goods. It is clear that sooner or later such actions should cause criticism of our team and dissatisfaction of international partners," says Nayem.

In addition, he stated that since the beginning of the year, the salaries of the Agency have been significantly reduced — the lionʼs share of employeesʼ salaries have been cut by up to 68%.

“The government did this against all logic and common sense. And no, we didnʼt have exorbitant salaries — the Agencyʼs senior specialist received a little over 30 000 hryvnias, and now itʼs 14,” he says.

Because of this, according to him, since the beginning of the year, the Agency has already lost 25% of its staff, about which he repeatedly wrote letters to the Prime Minister of Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) and the Ministry of Finance, and about which the G7 ambassadors repeatedly spoke at meetings with the head of the government.

"I believe that this was done deliberately so that the Agency, which to a certain extent has become a model for building processes ʼfrom scratchʼ, simply does not have professional and motivated people left, and the Agency itself is recognized as ineffective and unnecessary," said Nayem.

According to him, despite all the obstacles, during the entire time of the great war, the Agency did not "fail" and did not stop a single project, military cargo or evacuation route. He noted that today the Agency simultaneously coordinates the work of 353 reconstruction construction sites across the country.

After the de-occupation of the affected regions, the Agency restored almost 1.3 thousand kilometers of highways and traffic on 330 bridges. The Agency also repaired 29 of the largest checkpoints on the western border and began project work on the reconstruction and construction of two new checkpoints. And after the Russians blew up the dams of the Kakhovka HPP, the Agency built 155 kilometers of water mains in the Dnipropetrovsk region, which will provide drinking water to 1.5 million people.

According to him, one of the largest projects of the Agency is the construction of protective structures against drones and missiles at 22 distribution substations of "Ukrenergo" and the protection of 103 energy facilities from shrapnel damage, which was entrusted to the Agency by the decision of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. It is thanks to the fact that all the work on protection against drones and shrapnel was carried out that after the last shelling, the energy workers managed to restore the electricity supply in the Kharkiv, Odesa and Mykolaiv regions in the shortest possible time, he says.

Earlier, Nayem told Bloomberg that the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal "without explaining the reason" rejected his request to participate in the international Ukraine Recovery Conference, which is supposed to mobilize international support for the recovery of Ukraine.

According to Nayem, he planned to participate in panel discussions, as well as a meeting organized by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP with more than 100 German companies to discuss the prospects, challenges and transparency of Ukraineʼs reconstruction.

The editorial offices of a number of mass media received a document confirming the refusal of the Prime Minister to the head of the State Agency for Reconstruction and Development of Infrastructure.