What happened to the stolen funds? How much money has been recovered over the past year?

Right after change of power, the government became fully involved in the efforts aimed at recovering the funds that the former authorities had been stealing from the State for years. Several criminal cases were instituted, and it seemed as though the millions were going to be recovered and the social issues facing the country were going to be solved soon enough.

In this regard, during the days of the velvet revolution, the people had such great expectations that they had started naively thinking there would be so much money flowing into the country soon that there would be no more room to fill the budget. They even thought there was going to be so much money that the government would redeem the public debt.

However, exactly a year after change of power, the government has only recovered AMD 32 billion or $66-67 million. This makes up 35-36% of the revealed misuse of funds. As a matter of fact, compared to the revelations made in the beginning of this year, less has been recovered (out of the AMD 22 billion, only AMD 1.9 billion or 8.5% has been recovered).

“Since 2018, the competent authorities have instituted 1,446 criminal cases in relation to corruption crimes and tax evasion, and the damage caused to the State comprised AMD 89.3 billion, of which AMD 32 billion has been recovered,” Nikol Pashinyan said as he mentioned one of the 100 facts during a concluding press conference wrapping up the first year of activities of the government.

Is AMD 32 billion a lot of money or not? We can ask for the answer to this question from the proud citizens of Armenia who had great expectations from the sensational revelations that the government had launched.

One thing is for sure — this is not the sum that can somewhat ease the financial burden of the country and mitigate the social conditions. One of the proofs of this is the fact that the government has failed to solve any serious problem in the country over the past year following change of power (even the minimum salary and pensions haven’t been raised). It’s obvious that there is even no sense in talking about redemption of the public debt at the expense of the minimum salary and pensions.

Currently, the amount of funds recovered through revelations of corruption crimes are far from being the amount that was previously expected, and this has not only started disappointing the public, but has also started making Nikol Pashinyan go off the rails. He reminds the law-enforcement authorities about this from time to time, but it seems as though his calls remain unanswered. Since things aren’t really working out in the legal dimension, the political authorities are trying to move the processes to the field of transitional justice.

It’s still unclear how this will work out. It’s too early to draw far-reaching conclusions. It depends on how far the authorities plan to go during implementation of transitional justice.

In any case, one thing is for sure — the tool that the government is inclined to use to recover the damages caused to the State also contains serious risks for the economy, and the big question that remains is the following: What is more important — the economy or the recovery of financial resources?

While the government weighs it out, it’s clear that the recovery of $66-67 million is not a great achievement of the past year, especially after the big promises that were made. It’s not like there were no such revelations or such recoveries in the past. There might not be as many revelations and recoveries as there are now, but the fact remains that there were revelations and recoveries.

There might be more revelations of corruption crimes or tax evasion soon, but it’s simply naïve to think that the revelations can help ensure large flows of funds and the solution to serious social and economic issues.

There is also no sense in thinking that the AMD 89 billion in damages caused in relation to criminal cases instituted within the scope of the revelation of corruption crimes will be fully recovered. Unquestionably, there are many cases that mean nothing, and one shouldn’t have great expectations.

This is probably the reason why the government rarely talks about the funds that are recovered through sensational revelations. The promises haven’t been fulfilled and the expectations haven’t been met, and it’s hard to expect anything more than that. All this was being staged to, first and foremost, make the public be negatively disposed toward the former authorities and increase the reputation of the new authorities.

It’s not by chance that there are many resonant cases that have not been fully revealed and haven’t even been forwarded to courts. However, it’s not hard to recall how the entire public administration system had become fully involved in the efforts to reveal the so-called corruption schemes of the former authorities right after change of power. Ministers would leave everything behind and spend days digging deep into the financial activities of the former authorities. Law-enforcement authorities would announce about large-scale and sensational revelations one after another, even though it was initially clear that most of the sensational revelations were not really sensational. However, this didn’t stop them from presenting those revelations as the utter truth.
The government didn’t even care about the damages that such “shows” were causing to the economy, and the current state of the economy is also a consequence of that.

There was a time when the government was consistently pursuing one goal, and that was to discredit the former authorities, irrespective of what kind of impact that would have on the development of the economy in the future.

It’s not like a lot has changed now. Even now, the government never misses the opportunity to maintain the post-revolutionary euphoria. In the not too distant past, another “show” was put on in regard to Spayka LLC, and only after the government understood that the consequences of that “show” could be irreversible ahead of the season for supplying food did it reject the “genius” idea of keeping the director of the company behind bars.

And this is not all. Much lies ahead.

HAKOB KOCHARYAN