AMALIA KOSTANIAN: FIGHTING CORRUPTION IS ONLY DONE IN LOWER LINKS IN ARMENIA, WHICH IS WRONG

Noyan Tapan

Dec 15, 2008

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, NOYAN TAPAN. Fighting corruption should be
started with the upper links and be finished with the lower ones,
Amalia Kostanian, the Chairwoman of the Transparency International
anti-corruption center, considers.

During the summing up the results of the two-year program under
the title The Role of Media, NGOs, and State Government Bodies in
Fighting Corruption she refuted the affirmation of another speaker,
Chairman of RA Civil Service Council Manvel Badalian that we should
look for corruption not in the upper but at the lower links. According
to her, there is corruption in Armenia in both lower and upper links,
and we should attend to "very and very dangerous political corruption
in the upper links."

The arrests of lower link officials are not convincing, as they
"are not the people, who are most of all guilty," she said.

Raising salaries is only one method to fight corruption, but the
prevailing majority of people interrogated by the center does not
consider that, in particular, raising judges’ salaries will lead to
reduction of corruption phenomena in the judicial system. "These system
issues should not be solved one-sidedly," the NGO head said. "Let us
fight corruption in an adequate way," she appealed.

According to A. Kostanian’s evaluation, Armenia has a terrible
regress in the spheres of human rights and freedom of press, fair
legal procedure. No efficient fight can be carried out in the tax
body or any other sphere unless justice and freedom of expression
are ensured. "They attack journalists or intimidate civil activists,
on the one hand, they call them for fighting corruption, on the other
hand, beat and intimidate them."

According to her, fighting corruption is not systematized in Armenia.

U.S. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to RA Marie
Yovanovitch said that corruption is a human evil, which should be
fought every day, fighting corruption is not only government’s task,
the whole society should take part in it. According to her, certain
steps are undertaken in Armenia, nevertheless society wants to know how
much the authorities are ready to unmask the high-ranking officials,
businessmen having strong contacts.