Russian Railroads Introduce Iron Discipline
The new President of the corporation Russian Railroads (RR) Vladimir Yakunin started re-organization of the company’s management and created special organ that would control the discipline within the corporation. The head quarters of RR explained that new organ should help to the board of directors not get bogged down with internal conflicts’ resolutions. Yesterday the first “victims” of the commission have appeared – the head of Zabaikalsky Railroad Viktor Khokhryakov and his deputy Evgeny Rymarenko were fired “for breaking financial and management rules.”
The massive staff re-shuffle was expected from the moment when Yakunin took the office of the RR President. However, the new president was not in the rush with fresh promotions and terminations, despite the fact that he promised to announced the new management system before June 30. Because the corporation is partially owned by the state, the government was supposed to come up with new stake holders’ regulation document and appoint new board of directors before the end of June. But the document did not make the deadline and now RR is geared up for a new date – July 15. So far, the only losses among the top managers were the resignation of Nikolay Burnosov, vice-president for human resources, and long term vacation (until August 1) of Khasyan Zyabirov, first vice-president. It is not clear if the first vice-president will come back to work.
In the mean time, it became known yesterday that Yakunin already started the re-organization of the RR management. The first step in this direction was creation on June 30 new consultative organ under the president’s direct supervision – the disciplinary commission. This organ will contain 9 members.
The commission will be looking into the internal cases of broken management, labor and financial discipline with all the following consequences. As the representatives of RR explained, Yakunin, with the help of the commission, wants from one side “to unload the board of directors from the necessity of long examination of disciplinary procedures”, and from other side – to bring an order into the system of broken rules investigations. “The actions of the top regional managers and the heads of RR affiliates were not under control of the board of directors and the decision about their guilt or incompetence was made subjectively by one person,” the RR representatives explained.
The first “victims” of the new disciplinary organ have become Viktor Khokhryakov, head of the Zabaikalsky railroad, and Evgeny Rymarenko, his deputy for economic questions. They were fired “for breaking financial and management rules.” Gennady Matinin was appointed as acting director of the Zabaikalsky railroad. Before that, he held a position of Khokhryakov’s first deputy. Also, the head of the Gorky railroad Viktor Sekhin was reprimanded.
The RR refused to give any details about the reason for complaints against Zabaikalsky railroad top-management. However, the high ranking Kommersant’ source within RR explained that the company started to have a problems with Khokhryakov from September of 2004, during the time of the previous President –Gennady Fadeev. “This story lingers from that time,” the source assured Kommersant.
The fired top-managers of Zabaikalsky railroad also refuse to give any comments about the situation. The press-service of the rail road said that there is no any additional information about the reasons for the termination. The Kommersant sources in Zabaikalsky railroad said off the record that new commission “just clears the way for the Moscow managers” with its decisions.
Kommersant will monitor further development of the events.
Sergei Berg, Irkustk; Renata Yambaeva
All the Article in Russian as of July 12, 2005
|
