Pishnyi recommended to the supervisory board of "Sense Bank" to appoint a "curator" Vasyl Veselyi - ex-head of the supervisory board

The head of the National Bank, Andriy Pishnyi, recommended Vasyl Veselyi to the first supervisory board of the state-owned "Sense Bank" as a person who could establish communication between the bank and state authorities. After talking with Pishnyi, former supervisory board head Şevki Acuner was personally introduced to Veselyi at a meeting in the NBU premises.

Acuner said this on September 10 during a meeting of the Temporary Investigative Commission of the Verkhovna Rada on Economic Security, chaired by MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak.

According to Acuner, after the nationalization of "Sense Bank", the supervisory board consisted of only five members and had communication problems with key state bodies. He discussed this problem with NBU representatives.

Acuner stated that it was after such talks that the candidacy of Vasyl Veselyi appeared, whom he did not know personally before.

When asked by Zheleznyak whether it was specifically about NBU head Andriy Pishnyi, Acuner first noted that, as far as he remembers, it was indeed Pishnyi.

Later, when MPs asked for more details about the circumstances of Veselyi's appearance, Acuner was more specific.

"Mr. Pishnyi told me that he would try to find someone who could meet this need of the bank", - said the former supervisory board head.

According to him, about a day or two later, another meeting took place, at which Veselyi was personally introduced to Acuner.

The meeting, as Acuner clarified, took place directly in the premises of the National Bank, on the floor where the regulator's leadership is located.

After talking with Veselyi, Acuner passed his candidacy to the other members of the Supervisory Board of "Sense Bank". Acuner himself, according to him, was not present at the interview and discussion of the contract terms, so that the rest of the board members could make a decision independently.

Initially, Veselyi was hired for a three-month probationary period, and later the contract was extended for another 12 months.

Officially, Veselyi worked as an adviser to the supervisory board on interaction with state authorities. Acuner named the National Bank, the Ministry of Finance and the Office of the President as three key parties to such communication.

However, according to the former head of the supervisory board, Veselyi interacted most with the Ministry of Finance and the Office of the President, rather than the National Bank.

Acuner emphasized that during his work, Veselyi did not interfere in operational or financial decisions of "Sense Bank" and did not try to influence members of the supervisory board. According to him, the adviser's function was reduced to a permanent channel of communication between the bank and state stakeholders.

At the same time, Vasyl Veselyi became one of the figures in the story around the so-called "Mindich tapes". Earlier, Ekonomichna Pravda wrote that the publication's interlocutors in political circles called Veselyi the "overseer" of "Sense Bank". According to their version, he could have approved key decisions of the institution on behalf of government representatives and persons close to them.

At the previous meeting of the TSC, Pishnyi stated that he knew Veselyi since the latter worked at "Ukrposhta", but had no close family or business relations with him and did not communicate with him about finances and the banking sector.

After Acuner's testimony, Zheleznyak said that, in his opinion, they contradict the testimony that the MPs had previously received from representatives of state bodies, in particular the NBU leadership.

The TSC chairman called it "the first sufficiently documented case" of possible false testimony to the commission and said that the MPs will separately decide on further reaction. According to him, this will probably require another TSC meeting.

Based on materials: meeting of the Verkhovna Rada TSC, Ekonomichna Pravda