Who snatched the money of bio toilets?
Last year RA government made a decision to buy two bio toilets for the purpose of tourism development. The state budget allotted 124 million AMD (approximately 340 thousand USD). It means that the price of each biological toilet is 170 thousand USD.
By the way, let’s note that back in 2010 the government made a decision to allot 100 million AMD for the purpose of purchasing two bio toilets. Nonetheless, according to the decision of the government, one of the toilets was placed in Tatev village of Syunik marz near the cable car. The next one was placed next to Grigor Illuminator church of Yereven although in the beginning it was decided to place it in Garni. This February, the first deputy minister of economy Ara Petrosyan said that these toilets have an important role to play in the process of tourism development.
Then he said that modern technologies are used when installing these toilets. They must be cleaned and therefore the cost will be 200 drams. However, only a month after that the minister of economy Tigran Davtyan told the journalists that his ministry was not aware of the exploitation of these bio toilets. When the journalists quoted the words of the deputy minister, Davtyan responded, “I don’t know. Our ministry is in charge of industry, Euro-integration, investment, export and tourism. And my deputy hasn’t spoken about that.”
Nonetheless, after putting this contradictive story aside let’s notice that in order to avoid responsibility the government passed this duties of installation of bio toilets to the Foundation of National Competition. Yesterday we tried to receive certain information from this Foundation. But we were told from the public relations department of the Foundation that the answers will come in a written form. A little later we spoke to the head of Tatev village Murad Simonyan, who told us that a week ago they were instructed to turn the water on for the toilets and they did. He said that he didn’t have information whether the water ran or not. “I was told that the toilets would be exploited,” mentioned Simonyan. To the question whether he is aware of the price of bio toilets he responded, “When I learned of the cost of the toilets I was shocked. I don’t know. I heard they cost 170,000 USD.” When we asked what he would do if the 170,000 was allotted to the community Simonyan said, “if I was given this money I would have built ten toilets instead of a better quality. Moreover, I’d use this money to develop the community. But who would give me that much? It’s not like we are criticizing the government but it’s up to them to decide how the spend the funds more expediently.”
A coordinator of Caucasus Nature Foundation Arman Vermishyan told us, “I agree that these toilets should be placed near historic monuments. But if we speak more concretely about these two fantastic toilets I think that the money could have been better budgeted and spent. We could have much cheaper and smaller models of these toilets. He thinks that we didn’t need these toilets because in our country we have more important things to take care of.” In a word, we didn’t need these expensive toilets because in this country there are more important things to take care of. To the question, what made the government such a decision the ecologist said, “I am having difficulties answering this question.
I think they just didn’t prioritize well. It’s not only about these toilets. We periodically see certain expenditures coming from the state budget and ponder whether these were necessary or not. I have looked through the midterm project of 2013-2015. This in the environment we are not anticipating any increase if expenses and most of the existing ones are being cut. Now we cannot take care of environmental issues if we are buying such expensive toilets. This once again comes to prove that we have serious issues in the environmental circle. The environmental policy in Armenia is not functioning well.”
Of course, on the internet we can find sufficient information about bio toilets, including their prices. Moreover, such toilets can be bought at maximum of $8000. This is absurd but fits the way of thinking of the government. Moreover, it’s absurd that the government allowed mining in Svarants village, which is next to Tatev cable car, where they are attempting to develop tourism. The government perhaps doesn’t wish to notice the growing 35% official poverty in Armenia and the fact that there are still 4500 families without shelter in Gyumri.
By Marine Martirosyan
