Nikolay Pavlyuk
Personnel changes in Ukrainian ports and USPA have sparked a heated debate about the “professionalism of maritime industry leaders.” As a rule, the main criterion for the effectiveness of such a manager is specialized education and work experience in the industry.
Of course, taking into account the indicated criteria, the most effective leader can be considered the order bearer, Hero of Ukraine, honorary citizen of Odessa, long-term director of the Odessa port Nikolai Pavlyuk.
To understand what makes up the image of an ideal leader in the port industry, let’s take a closer look at his biography.
Education
Pavlyuk Nikolai Panteleimonovich entered the Institute of Marine Engineers in Odessa (specialty – water transport operating engineer) at the age of 26. He studied there for 8 years – from 1956 to 1964. Full member of the Transport Academy of Sciences (this is a public organization where an “academician’s” certificate costs 10 thousand UAH and a “membership” costs 5)
Work experience
Since 1960 he has been working in the Odessa commercial sea port. He began his career as a fireman, then worked as a loader and dispatcher. He became the head of the port in 1985. In 2002–2005, he was a people’s deputy of Ukraine. From 2005 to October 2011 – again head of the port. From 2011 to the present – at the age of 77 years old, honorary president of the Odessa Sea Commercial Port on salary.
Awards
In 1970, being a senior dispatcher of the 2nd district and a member of the CPSU, he was awarded the medal “For Valiant Labor” – 10 years after starting work at the port.
In 1973, being deputy head of the 2nd district for operation, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.
In 2000, Nikolai Pavlyuk was awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine – for outstanding personal services to the state in the development of maritime transport, significant contribution to the technical re-equipment of the enterprise, and increased business efficiency. Personal merits are not specified, but it is known that in 1999 N. Pavlyuk was a confidant of the candidate for President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma. You can also find references on the Internet that N. Pavlyuk received the title of Hero of Ukraine from Kuchma for smuggling weapons through the Odessa port, which were transported to the “hot spots” of Africa, the former Yugoslavia and conflict areas of the world, as well as for fraud with oil products, but You never know what they write on the Internet…
Also in 2000, he became an honorary citizen of Odessa.
Labor achievements
1. “Pavlyuk Overpass”. In 2009, the construction of a transport overpass in the Odessa port, which had been going on since 1996, was completed. Its total length is 6.4 km, and the total cost was about 4 billion UAH. All bridge crews of Ukraine took part in its construction. The facility was named after Nikolai Pavlyuk, who, through a thoughtful management decision, brought the main overpass onto private territory – and since then, loud scandals have not stopped around this structure.
2. “Pavlyuk’s breakwater”. An equally unique monument to N. Pavlyuk is the breakwater that has sunk into the depths of the sea and the empty terminals on his other brainchild – the Quarantine Pier project. The losses are approaching a billion dollars, half of which are state-owned, but the culprits cannot be found, and the founder of the project, N. Pavlyuk, as a true professional in the port sector, has modestly gone into the shadows.
Sunken breakwater in the port of Odessa
3. “Hotel Pavlyuka” Thanks to N. Pavlyuk’s ability to attract investment, for the second decade the view of Odessa has been disfigured by an empty hotel at the sea terminal. In the materials of the criminal case in which N. Pavlyuk was arrested, it is written that he “on previously economically unfavorable conditions transferred the entire property hotel complex “Odessa” to the specified LLC for a period of 49 years, causing a significant loss to the state, and illegally spent it on hotel renovation funds of state-owned enterprises.” His renowned skills in implementing planned projects can also be found here.
Non-operating hotel at the seaport
4. “Improving business efficiency”. N. Pavlyuk transferred the entire profitable stevedoring business into private hands for decades – as a result, all cargo in the port is handled by private companies. People unfamiliar with the maritime industry may wonder: why do we need such a helpless manager who himself is not able to ensure maximum profit, and therefore gives the business to someone who knows how to work? Why does the largest specialist in the maritime industry not carry out his direct responsibilities, but works with intermediaries? Amateurs may be surprised that as a result of such a decision, the budget annually loses more than 500 million UAH, and the profits of private stevedores are transferred to offshore companies. However, experienced specialists in port activities, such as N. Pavlyuk, are ready to tell amateurs about the theory and practice of public-private partnership, which creates conditions for the rational use of resources, effective management and functioning of the port.
All port warehouses, berths, terminals, cranes, auxiliary transport, etc. are leased
5. “Pavlyuk Shipyard”. Financial fraud at the already bankrupt Odessa ship repair plant and the withdrawal of more than 100 million hryvnia through the Finance and Credit bank, which is in the process of liquidation. Competent financial planning and forecasting under the leadership of the Honorary President of the port.
6. “Pavlyuk’s Water Park”. The recreation center of the Odessa seaport and the water park towering nearby, built on the initiative of Pavlyuk in the suburbs of Odessa in the village of Chabanka, do not work, and the cost of their construction amounted to millions of dollars. Long-term specialized education helped Pavlyuk decide to close these facilities and quit.
Poseidon Water Park is an indoor water complex in Chabanka. One of the largest indoor complexes in Eastern Europe
7. Charity. In 2014, after Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) annexed Crimea, on the advice of N. Pavlyuk, the Progress tugboat worth UAH 12 million was donated to Sevastopol. Now the tugboat is participating in the construction of the Kerch Bridge.
8. Thanks to N. Pavlyuk’s ability to solve practical problems in the field of the maritime fleetDuring his time, the Odessa port inexplicably lost 7 ships of the port fleet. Undoubtedly, in order to lose 7 ships unnoticed, good knowledge of the maritime industry is required.
9. Ability to take responsibility. Pavlyuk was not afraid to facilitate the illegal allocation of land, the issuance of environmental approvals, the construction and commissioning of a liquefied gas transshipment complex in the immediate vicinity of the oil terminal in the port of Odessa. State norms and standards were violated, as were the rules for the safe location of particularly dangerous man-made objects, but the joint activities of private business and the port are a sacred concept for Pavlyuk.
10. The interests of the port come first. Under N. Pavlyuk, instead of a sea view, Odessa residents received “steel cans” and constantly closed apartment windows – due to the endless noise from the port, dust, dirt, and the constant vibration of thousands of “bumping” cars during railway maneuvers under their windows. A successful public-private partnership gave Odessa residents open iron ore warehouses near kindergartens and a recreation park. Only real specialists in the port industry are able to disfigure the historical and cultural landscape of Odessa, create serious environmental problems for its residents and deprive it of silence by organizing an endless stream of dirty, overloaded carriages and road trains in the center of the resort city.
Grain terminal in the very center of Odessa. View from Primorsky Boulevard
11. “Ruins of Pavlyuk”. The destroyed foundry, forge and ship repair plant buildings between Primorskaya Street and the Marinesko Descent, probably not without the help of Pavlyuk’s deep maritime knowledge, turned into a haven for homeless people, drug addicts and extreme sports enthusiasts.
One of the collapsed buildings of the shipyard
12. Raising social standards – one of the main priorities of the work. N. Pavlyuk paid millions of hryvnias from the state enterprise to the private office “Into-Sana” to provide so-called insurance medical care to port workers. However, when fatalities occurred at the port or when port workers injured at work urgently needed medical attention, Into-Sana refused not only to provide assistance, but also to come to the scene of the emergency to take the victim to the hospital. Also, N. Pavlyuk was always concerned about the port’s kindergartens, which he transferred from the balance of the port to “improve economic indicators.”
13. Ability to negotiate – an important quality in the maritime industry. Nikolay Pavlyuk helped reduce the fine for an environmental disaster in the form of a huge oil spill in the waters of the Odessa oil harbor. The initial amount of damage that the shipowner of the Athenian Face tanker, which spilled about 40 tons of oil into the sea during ballast pumping, was ready to pay was about 20 million US dollars. However, Pavlyuk agreed to a “settlement agreement”, according to which the amount of the fine was reduced to $3.7 million.
14. Effective international maritime cooperation. N. Pavlyuk actually, without competition, appointed to the vacant position of the operator of the Odessa container terminal the structure he lobbied for, Hamburg Port Consult (GPK), which at that time did not have any experience in the field of intermodal global container transportation, was not involved in stevedoring operations of this type, did not have the ability to attract new container cargo flows, did not have authority in the field of container business. Prior to this, the operator of the container terminal was the world-famous American stevedoring and logistics company Ceres Terminal. The Americans brought order to the port and taught the staff to work using new, advanced technologies. However, Pavlyuk decided that the Americans were not paying enough, and, in violation of contractual obligations, demanded all kinds of concessions from them. A local conflict has escalated into an international scandal. Even former US Secretary of State Marlene Albright raised this issue at the interstate level. The climax of the scandal was the decision of the Americans to break the cooperation agreement with the Odessa port and leave the Ukrainian market – due to their reluctance to be involved in corruption and smuggling schemes. Pavlyuk’s decision brought the port’s investment attractiveness to a qualitatively new level.
Image film-gift for the 75th anniversary of Nikolai Pavlyuk
15. In the mid-90s, Pavlyuk announced a tender for the right to construct a Ballast Water Treatment Station (BWTP) in the oil harbor of the port. The tender was conducted in accordance with the rules. Proposals were submitted by foreign companies specializing in the production of this type of equipment. As a result, the world-famous Italian company Servisi Ekolodzi won. Pavlyuk congratulated the winning company with pomp and invited its management to a banquet. It soon became clear that Pavlyuk had long ago agreed on everything with the odious company “Sintez-Oil”, which was engaged in oil transshipment in the Odessa oil harbor. As a result, not the most modern WWSS was built.
16. Ability to plan years ahead. In 2009, Pavlyuk began construction of berth 1-z on the Androsovsky pier and promised to build it in 4 years. However, the berth has not yet been commissioned, the construction estimate has doubled, and the deadline for its commissioning has been shifted to 2018.
17. Business connections – a unique resource for a leader that helps solve a wide range of complex tactical and strategic problems. When researching Pavlyuk’s business connections, the first link brought up the message: “Reasonable (“Zyuma”), Angert (“Angel”)Rosengoltz, Dolinsky, Zhukov, Pavlyuk and Bodelan They’ve done a lot of things at the state level! … Pavlyuk is a puppet in the hands of bandit “businessmen”. Odessa residents remember the strong combination of Bodelan-Zhukov-Angert-Trukhanov-Pavlyuk-Grigorenko-Grinevetsky… Pavlyuk is dragging to the vacant deputy seat in the city council Gennady Trukhanovwho is the representative of A. Angert (“Angel”) in Odessa.” After this, it was decided to stop the search.
Conclusions
Only 17 facts of the rapid management activity of N. Pavlyuk – “a leading figure in the transport industry” according to the criteria of “education” and “work experience” – are given. In fact, there are much more such facts – it’s worth, for example, looking at the Development Program of the Odessa Commercial Sea Port until 2015, developed by Pavlyuk and approved by the Ministry in 2009. So, of the 11 projects presented there for the development of OMTP facilities and 4 programs that were supposed to ensure the environmental safety of the port, save energy resources, update the port fleet and crane facilities, practically nothing has been completed. Just as the promised “more than 1,400 jobs directly at the port” have not been created.
The study ignored numerous references regarding N. Pavlyuk related to corruption, financial fraud, illegal disposal of state property – after all, for the purpose of the study, we are only interested in the professionalism in making management decisions by the ideal head of the maritime industry.
Ultimately, the study showed that the name of the “luminary of the transport industry” Nikolai Pavlyuk is inextricably linked with the most notorious failures in the Odessa port. The ineffectiveness of the market model created by this “outstanding leader” was also shown, in which all port warehouses, berths, terminals, cranes, auxiliary transport, etc. were leased to private stevedoring companies, and the port fleet remained the only business in the port that brings real income.
Someone might argue that in recent years Pavlyuk was not in power in the port, so the image of an ideal maritime economic leader is somewhat distorted. However, it is impossible to distinguish where in recent years Pavlyuk has been in charge, and where his successor Vaskov has been, and where they are both in pairs, since before Pavlyuk’s dismissal in 2011, Vaskov was his first deputy for several years and the actual embodiment of all his failed undertaking The same applies to the head of the Odessa port administration, Mikhail Sokolov: his shadow leader is the same N. Pavlyuk, who occupies the best office in the Sea Ports Administration and receives a salary.
Nikolay Pavlyuk
After all, if the president receives a salary, he must work it off? However, experts argue that Pavlyuk’s office and position were assigned not so much to carry out management functions and solve specific organizational problems, but to control the unspoken list of contractual conditions known only to him, under which he leased out port facilities for decades.
Therefore, statements about the indispensability of transport industry luminary Nikolai Pavlyuk are absolutely true.
However, examples of his management activities in the Odessa port indicate that in order to bring the port to a qualitatively new level of competitiveness, specialized education and knowledge of the specifics of the maritime industry are unnecessary and even harmful.
Igor Degulis, for SKELET-info
