Yuriy Bolokhovets, General Director of the State Enterprise «Forests of Ukraine,» received UAH 28 million exclusively in bonus payments over the past three years. This amount was awarded as additional financial incentive on top of his base official salary, raising widespread questions regarding the appropriateness of such expenditures in a state-owned enterprise.
The scale of these financial payouts becomes clear when distributing the total bonus amount across a standard calendar schedule. On average, the head of the state enterprise received approximately UAH 25,600 in bonuses every single day, including weekends and public holidays.
When calculating strictly based on actual working days, the daily bonus incentive rises to roughly UAH 36,000 per day. Consequently, a single day of bonus compensation for the top executive exceeds the entire monthly income of most workers within the forestry sector.
In contrast to the high payouts received by executive leadership, compensation for front-line field staff remains critically low. Currently, the average monthly salary for foresters and forest masters ranges between UAH 12,000 and UAH 20,000 per month. This indicates that the head of the enterprise earns more in a single working day from bonuses alone than a front-line specialist earns in nearly two months of demanding physical labor.
The situation is further complicated by severe staffing shortages across regional branches. Due to a lack of personnel, local employees are frequently forced to take on overtime and combine their primary duties with heavy labor, such as tree felling.
The widening gap between executive earnings and line-staff compensation highlights broader challenges in state asset management. While regional forestry units face acute labor shortages and insufficient operational funding, the central management of SE «Forests of Ukraine» continues to allocate substantial resources toward executive bonuses.
«Over a three-year period, a single executive received UAH 28 million in bonuses. This raises a fundamental question: if the enterprise budget has sufficient funds for payouts of this scale, why are resources lacking to provide fair wages for the workers who actually maintain the forests?»
The current bonus structure underscores the growing demand for public oversight, corporate governance reforms, and stricter financial audits within state-owned enterprises.