Engaged in Looting the State
The Civil Contract party came to power claiming it would return the stolen wealth taken by the former authorities, but it has itself become a real looter. By legal and illegal means, they are plundering the state and wasting public funds.
During the time of the former “looters,” who could have imagined that the authorities would allow themselves to pay around 8.6 million dollars from the state budget for some kind of consulting service? And for a program whose implementation experts consider neither justified nor realistic.
This is not the first time consulting services have been purchased; they were obtained during previous governments as well. Sometimes it is a necessity. But never has such a large sum been paid for such a service. 8.6 million is an enormous amount for consulting. To understand what this means: some people will come from abroad, give the government some recommendations and suggestions with serious faces, take the 8.6 million dollars, and leave. Whether anything will come of the program or not, they are hardly concerned.
If such a thing had happened previously, Nikol Pashinyan, Civil Contract members, and NGOs would have raised a huge outcry, accusing the authorities of stealing and wasting public funds. But today they calmly allow themselves to take 3.3 billion drams—or about 8.6 million dollars—from the state budget and pay it to a foreign company to provide consulting for the government’s imaginary “Academic City” project. And they are doing this not through a public tender but through a direct, single-source procurement.
How have they decided, without a tender, that the price of this service is 8.6 million dollars and not, say, 2 million—apparently only they know. They determined that the service could be provided by only one company, and that company is the British “UCL Consultants Limited.”
Through a direct purchase, they intend to pay 8.6 million dollars from the state budget for consulting on the “Academic City” project that the authorities have been circulating for years—a project whose beginning and end are nowhere in sight.
They did not announce a tender for acquiring the consulting service but somehow decided the price is 8.6 million dollars. And what if they had held a tender and other participants were willing to offer the same service for a much lower price? They deliberately avoided a tender because their preferred company, the British UCL Consultants Limited, might not have won.
This is why no tender was held—never mind that the state could have saved millions of dollars as a result.
And we are not even addressing the question of how reasonable it is to spend money on a program whose prospects are extremely uncertain. The state does not have—and will not have—the funds required to implement such a project. We are talking about several trillion drams. They themselves do not know where the money would come from, but they are “building” an Academic City and preparing to pay 8.6 million dollars for consulting.
In a country where 23–24 percent of the population is poor, at whose expense are such lavish expenses made? They have no money to raise pensions or social benefits, yet they give millions for consulting. And why only consulting? When you look at what else the state budget is being spent on, you are left speechless.
The Government Administration has allocated 207 million drams—or 540,000 dollars—to an NGO without any tender and through a secret procedure, simply because its founder and former chairman published a booklet about Nikol Pashinyan’s “revolution.” Pashinyan then “rewards” them and, through secret decisions, allocates tens of millions of drams annually to this NGO from the state budget—an organization that has absolutely no connection to the government. Yet the government shows such generosity toward it.
They plan to spend around 8 million dollars to subsidize airline ticket prices for private airlines—as if there were no more urgent or essential places to spend that money.
They spent 125,000 dollars to purchase a new official car for the Minister of Internal Affairs. Apparently, if the car cost only 50 or 60 thousand dollars, it would not have been able to transport the minister.
This is how budget funds are squandered, and then they take loans and accumulate debt.
How can nearly 333 million drams—or 865,000 dollars—be spent in a country with 24 percent poverty to finance several concert programs within the “Erebuni–Yerevan 2807” celebrations? Again, without a tender, without competition, through single-source procurement. As if they did not know at the beginning of the year that such events would be organized.
They knew, but deliberately did not announce a tender. Instead, they directly signed a contract with a company they regularly contract, and the pricing remains utterly opaque.
The corruption risks of single-source procurement have been discussed many times. Yet the authorities stubbornly continue making large single-source purchases. Why? One can only guess.
Instead of addressing numerous high-priority issues, they spend millions on funding various events, organizing festivals and concerts, and making pointless and untimely expenditures.
A couple of years ago, they paid 71 million drams to buy a new main Christmas tree for Yerevan. This year, the municipality plans to spend 50 million drams to replace the tree’s branches and lighting.
Then, they will spend hundreds of millions more on New Year events and festive decorations. Then they will say there is no money to buy buses and trolleybuses or build a metro station.
This year, the Yerevan municipality planned to purchase 45 trolleybuses with its own funds. But now it turns out they have no money, so the purchase will be made with state budget funds—while the city can allocate huge sums to various NGOs and known or unknown organizations.
They used to accuse the former authorities, but now they themselves are busy looting the state and wasting its resources.
Hakob Kocharyan
