ARMENIAN PRESIDENTIAL CONTROL SERVICE REVEALS MASSIVE VIOLATIONS

news.am, Armenia
Dec 21 2009

As a result of inspections conducted over the last few months, the
Control Service of the President of the Republic of Armenian has
revealed numerous violations in the work of almost all the ministries
and government agencies. Major violations were registered in the work
of the RA Ministry of Nature Protection. At his press conference,
Head of the Servide Hovhannes Hovsepyan pointed out violations in
the royalty and income tax payments. "In the case of royalty the
concessionaires did not pay about 1bn AMD to the state budget. As
regards the income tax, they did not pay about 300m AMD," Hovsepyan
said. Mine concession licenses were issued with massive violations
as well.

The licenses were issued to the economic entities that failed to
fulfill their commitments before. Over 500m AMD were not paid to
the state budget due to loopholes in Armenian laws. Some of the
concessionaries failed to meet their investment commitments, which
caused damage of several billion AMD to the state. The relevant
authorized agencies levied 130m AMD instead of 247m AMD for mine
exploitation licenses. License taxes totaling 600m AMD were not paid
to the budget.

Hovsepyan reported a considerable decrease in the number of violations
after some of the powers were transferred from the RA Ministry of
Nature Protection to the RA Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources.