NCIP: We are in mess and suffer from staff shortage

The National Centre of Intellectual Property (NCIP) has not recovered yet after the scandalous walkout of employees.

Charter97.org tried to learn how the country's main patent agency lives now and what its former employees do. Only one of consultation deparment answered the phone.

“If you'd like to know about the dismissal of employees, the only thing I can say is that new acting director general Piotr Broukin was appointed on July 2. Perhaps you'd better contact him for further information,” an employee of the NCIP's consultation department said and recommended to call the director general's office.

However, our correspondent couldn't talk to Piotr Broukin or other top officials – no one picked up the phone. The charter97.org journalists phoned the consultation department again and managed to get information about the situation.

“You know, we are in a total mess now. We suffer from staff shortage. I don't even know who could tell you details. Twenty three employees quit, among them those responsible for the website and public relations. Our salary falls almost by half due to depriving us of the status of government employees. Some people already found new jobs. We don't know what we can expect. They neither tell us anything nor invite us to work meetings,” an employee of the consultation department described the situation in a depressed tone.

He said no one picked up the phone in the office because “We have a lot of work and few people.”

On the evening of July 2, just after the publication of the scandalous open letter, a spokesman for the State Committee on Science and Technologies, Yury Lukashevich, promised a salary increase for the remaining staff. The employees of the consultation department didn't hear about it.

“We have no information about our salaries this month,” he said.

The NCIP website confirms these words indirectly. The scandalous letter was removed and the mark “vacant” appeared against many posts. The NCIP doesn't have both deputy general directors, heads of a number of departments and head of the Examination Centre of Industrial Property.

The conflict was caused by the NCIP management discontent over the administrative reform, according to which specialists of the patent agency were deprived of the status of government employees. NCIP senior managers and some ordinary employees quit in protest.

The NCIP staff posted an open letter on the official website to describe their vision of the problem. “Madness cannot long last,” they wrote.