The new head of Ukrainian Railways Ukrzaliznytsia, Wojciech Balczun, pledged to save the company 7 bn hryvnia in the first year on the job.
"Ukrazliznytsya many decades was the trough of those who sat at the Ukrzaliznytsia there flowed billions of not hundreds of thousands, and billions of decades ambitious plan for a new leader says that we will save for the first year of the management of not less than 7 billion hryvnia!" Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said during the government hour in the parliament.
"By paying a few hundred thousand hryvnia, we save billions that went into the pockets of speculators," Groysman said as commented on the Balczun's high salary.
The prime minister said that the railway should become a modern European company.
Balczun has won an open competition for the selection of the head of Ukrzaliznitsya.
He has reportedly led the Polish Railways PKP Cargo out of 100m zloty losses to 500m zloty (over 132m US dollars ) in profits. Having reformed the company, he brought it to IPO and resigned.
Ukrzaliznytsia is the state railway network operator in Ukraine, a monopoly that controls a vast majority of the railroad transportation in the country with a total length of track of over 23,000 km, which makes the Ukrainian railroad network the 14th largest in the world. Ukrzaliznytsia is also the world's 6th largest rail passenger transporter and the world's 7th largest freight transporter. Ukrzaliznitsya is one of the largest employers in Ukraine that provides jobs for over 300, 000 employees.