Ukrposhta's supervisory board no longer has a single independent member. The state-owned company, which serves more than 11 million clients and is a licensed payment services provider, has effectively been left without a proper corporate governance body.
Independent board members are not a decorative function. It is they who must block conflicts of interest, approve major deals, and oversee management without being subordinate to the ministry or company leadership. Without them, the board becomes an organ controlled by those it is supposed to oversee.
Ukrposhta is not just a logistics network. The company holds a license from the National Bank of Ukraine to provide payment services, processes pension payments, money transfers, and utility payments. This means that the absence of independent oversight concerns not corporate reporting in a vacuum, but the movement of real money belonging to real people — primarily in small towns and villages, where Ukrposhta is often the only available financial intermediary.
The problem is systemic: in Ukrainian state-owned companies, independent directors often leave due to political pressure, non-transparent contract terms, or simply due to lack of real authority. When they leave, their positions either remain unfilled for years or are filled with loyal candidates who are independent only on paper.
How long Ukrposhta will function in this state — and whether a mechanism will emerge for appointing new independent members with real authority, rather than simply with the appropriate line in the charter?
