The new head of the Odessa port, Aleksey Myaskovsky, started his work last year with an audit, first of all dealing with the towing problem, which literally ruined the port in a few years. He worked in the Port of Odessa since 1998, first as the head of the commercial department, and then as the head of the legal service of the Port of Odessa. And he knows all the moves of the previous leadership well, so that he can now play his own game. ElitExpert talked to the head of the port to find out about his priority plans.
— Aleksey Mykhailovych, sailors believe that the port fleet is "merging" with privateers...
Trouble knockedback in 2016, when the port began to be taken away, and the exact management of the port began to actively distribute work (including the tugboats themselves and the clientele) to private companies. But then the sailors' protests quickly died down, since the port paid double wages due to a sharp drop in the volume of work, and some captains were taken as founders of a private structure with the bright name "Portoflot Odesa" LLC, which was supposed to quietly "merge" the port fleet. Well, some sailors received and continue to receive their third salary in private towing companies. Therefore, the rallies and uprisings quickly came to naught, but the Odesa port was at a loss with this approach... By the way, Milushev himself was fired during this period and returned to me already.
The main problem was laid back in 2012, with the adoption and entry into force of the Law on Sea Ports of Ukraine. It does not say a word about towing services, work format, requirements for companies, etc. Until 2012, it was a state monopoly, regulated by the Merchant Shipping Code, as well as regulatory documents of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine. And since 2013, when the law took effect, this market became open to private individuals.
Until 2016, we restrained the entry of private companies into the water area of the port by the State Government and AMPU, we understood that as soon as the first company entered here, the earnings in this area for the state enterprise would be put to an end, besides, there were no private tugboats adequate in terms of their capacities in the country .
Annually, portoflot received up to 14 million dollars in profit. Dividends and taxes were respectively paid to the state budget from this profit. All this was transparent and understandable and, most importantly, beneficial for the state. When the management at the port changed, people who were not port workers came to the management, they willingly allowed the arrival of private companies, and not world-famous brands that work openly, but manual, pocket-managed ones, which were given tugboats and a direct client base for pennies, which means and all the work of the portfolio.
From 2016 to 2019, the trend of the port fleet's decline went absolutely straight down. State-owned enterprises have only 10-12% of the towing market in the water area of Odessa. Moreover, in the first hour, 70% of the market went into private hands. And there is a clear reference point (specific agreement) when it happened, but this is already material for a criminal case. And already after an hour, the first negative result from the portfolio's work was obtained. Over the course of three years, companies changed, transformed, and accumulated resources. And when our team came to manage the state-owned tugboat at the end of 2019, the state-owned enterprise was an insensitive body, to put it in medical language, with losses of more than 100 million hryvnias and prosperous private towing companies around, which already have their own fleet, independent of the state-owned enterprise , and an established clientele.
What did we do in the first hour? In addition to urgent resuscitation procedures, first of all, the question was raised before the Ministry of Infrastructure. In order for the state to participate in business, it is necessary to regulate this market, to create identical and understandable rules for all players. Otherwise, it turns out, we work according to strict rules, pay taxes, bear social obligations. With private companies, everything is much simpler, including the availability of a full set of market instruments: they can take any tugs, any flag, hire any crew, they have a flexible system of working with clients, tax optimization, quick purchases and repairs, flexible tariff policy, no collective agreement and trade unions, etc. We have only two levers - relatively free formation of tariffs and relatively fast optimization of expenses, that's the whole set of "competitors".
The ministry understands the problem, but legislation needs to be changed to regulate the market. I proposed a draft of the corresponding changes, which was supported by the reform support office at the Ministry of Infrastructure. These norms were included in the draft law, which was largely approved during the year. And now they are trying to introduce it to the Verkhovna Rada. When it is introduced and adopted, it will be necessary to adopt a number of additional by-laws so that the Ministry can somehow regulate this market. And in what state will the state port fleet be by that time is an open question.
— That is, the portfolio of the state-owned enterprise is in a stalemate?
— Now we are in such conditions, when the work for the portfolio is minimal, and the social burden on the company is colossal. We got the portfolio since those times when there were different conditions, no one optimized the number of crews, people were used to receiving good salaries and social benefits. Today, the situation has changed dramatically. There are 712 people working in the port of Odessa, and more than 200 in the port fleet. To stay afloat, we have several options for action. One of them is the study of demand from private companies for vessels that are not used in the waters of the Odessa port and, most importantly, do not have such prospects in the future. We want to understand whether there are willing structures that can take control of this fleet within the framework of a bareboat charter, along with social obligations for tugboat crews. Will we be able to interact with them and receive income. We already had an experience in October. We tendered 4 tugboats, unfortunately no one was interested in principle. Two more of our tugboats worked in Nikolaev, bringing in about 25 million hryvnias per hour. Due to this, our portfolio ended the hour with a profit of 10 million hryvnias. But this year, the company that placed the orders refused to further load our fleet. The tugboats returned to Odessa, and we found ourselves without income and wondering what to do next. Now we are thinking about options for transferring part of the fleet to management so that it does not stand idle. I don't quite understand why there was a fuss about this, especially among sofa analysts and experts who have nothing to do with the issue and have never even been to the port, although we are open to any dialogue. Since 2016, the enterprise has been systematically looted, and now everyone has woken up saying, "Well, where is our flagship?". I would like to ask in which direction the friends looked in the past years?
— Why do you immediately offer a group of tugboats?
— We offer 6 tugboats, because the fleet is heterogeneous, there are specifics, they can select the cream of the crop, but what to do with the rest? We have 6 people working on 105 tugboats. In private companies, the fleet is 30-40% smaller. But we do not have the task of reducing people, otherwise we would have started doing it from the very beginning. If we will hand over the ships, then together with the signing of a social agreement to share the responsibility for the fate of the crews.
— What are the prospects?
— We are waiting for the adoption of regulatory documents at the legislative level. After all, this situation applies to all public carriers that provide towing services. The situation is similar in the port of Chernomorsk. In Yuzhny, the market is maintained due to agreements between players. Gosstividors gave their fleet to Nikolaev a long time ago. The government has regulated its enterprises in such a way that it is becoming increasingly difficult to survive in a competitive environment. While we have a certain volume of orders. And if we can transparently transfer the inactive part of the fleet to management, then we will maintain the situation. Bareboat is not a sale, the property will not be left to the state. In the end, the state property management body must decide what kind of policy it will be: to develop a state-owned enterprise or to leave this sphere.
