Governmental anti-corruption agency chief steps down
10:32, 6 February, 2019
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 6, ARMENPRESS. Siranush Sahakyan, President of the Commission on Ethics of High-Ranking Officials, has resigned.
The Commission on Ethics of High-Ranking Officials is a governmental anti-corruption agency dealing with gathering asset declarations from officials, detection of conflict of interests, detection of violations of ethics rules by high-ranking officials and other functions.
Sahakyan took office in 2014.
In a resignation letter posted on the agency’s official website yesterday evening, she described the events that led to her decision to step down.
“After the 2017-2018 massive legislative reforms the strong and complete anti-corruption system became reality,” she said. “The prevention of corruption, as a main direction of combating it, was placed on institutional foundations with required infrastructures and toolbox. New legislative solutions created duly prerequisites for financial transparency of officials, discovery of [possible] corruption crimes through analyzing [asset] declarations, managing and preventing cases of conflict of interests. These coherent efforts not only gained high assessments from international specialized institutions, but also served as grounds for ambitious proposals for further perfection of the system”.
She then noted that the prospect of continuity of reforms, however, required speedy further actions such as the creation of a Corruption Prevention Commission, new mechanisms, analysis and introduction of new asset declarations for combating illicit enrichment, as well as enhanced cooperation with law enforcement agencies.
“Whereas problems typical of a transitional time period did not receive solutions – the Corruption Prevention Commission was not formed. Moreover, by ignoring requirements of law, a competition for electing members of this body was not organized. From January 1, 2019 the content of [asset] declarations was amended. Therefore, the previous regulations concerning declarations became void. The Government did not confirm the new sample of declarations because it was to be proposed by the Corruption Prevention Commission. In addition, from January 1, 2019 asset declarations are subject to submission not to the Ethics Commission, but rather the Corruption Prevention Commission – meaning a body that still doesn’t exist”, she said, giving further descriptions of the problems, such as “concerns expressed by international organizations as well as the Commission’s actions for overcoming them” being ignored.
“This situation is incompatible with my approaches regarding professional activities and the responsibility that I have for solving problems in the transitional phase”, she said, adding that she therefore steps down.
Sahakyan also thanked her colleagues for the joint work.
Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan