Friday,
Armenian Telecom Firm’s CEO, Employees ‘Quit In Protest’
• Narine Ghalechian
Armenia -- The entrance to a Ucom company office in Yerevan, December 30, 2019.
The chief executive and hundreds of other employees of a leading Armenian
telecommunication company have reportedly tendered their resignations in protest
against its majority shareholders’ plans to buy a rival firm.
The company, Ucom, owns one of Armenia’s three mobile phone networks and is also
the country’s largest Internet service provider. It announced late last year
plans to purchase the Armenian subsidiary of VEON, an Amsterdam-based operator
partly controlled by a Russian tycoon.
VEON Armenia too provides mobile and fixed-line telephony and Internet services.
Its Beeline wireless network is the oldest in the country.
VEON and Ucom appeared to have agreed the terms of the deal in December and have
since been awaiting its approval by Armenia’s government as well as utility and
anti-trust regulators. The authorities are understood to be looking into the
proposed merger’s impact on competition in the domestic telecom sector.
A Ucom employee who asked not to be identified told RFE/RL’s Armenian service
that the company’s executive director, Hayk Yesayan, resigned after it emerged
that Ucom will be run by Beeline’s current Russian chief executive, Andrey
Pyatakhin, if the deal goes through. At least 350 other Ucom employees also
decided to quit in protest, claimed the source.
According to the source, Yesayan and his brother Aleksandr oppose Beeline’s
takeover also because it would dilute their 6 percent stake in Ucom.
Armenia -- UCOM CEO Hayk Yesayan speaks to RFE/RL, Yerevan, October 7, 2019.
Ucom, which employs around 1,800 people, did not comment on this information as
of Friday evening. Yesayan also did not make any public statements.
A spokeswoman for Beeline, Nara Nazarian, said Pyatakhin is “continuing to
occupy his post and not planning to leave it.” “The deal [with Ucom] is still
under discussion and we are not commenting on it,” she told RFE/RL’s Armenian
service.
Asked whether Pyatakhin indeed wants to manage Ucom if Beeline’s takeover is
cleared by the Armenian authorities, Nazarian said: “Such questions should be
put to Ucom’s shareholders.”
Ucom is controlled by the extended family of Gagik Khachatrian, a controversial
former Armenian finance minister who was arrested last August on corruption
charges denied by him. Khachatrian’s two sons and a nephew own a combined 77
percent of its stock.
Late last month, the three men’s assets were frozen as part of the continuing
criminal investigation into Khachatrian. The ex-minister’s lawyers condemned the
investigators’ decision as illegal.
Meanwhile, Armenia’s Ministry of High-Tech Industry expressed concern about the
controversy. In a statement, it urged the telecom operators and their workers to
“display responsibility” and act in conformity with a coronavirus-related state
of emergency. As part of the emergency rule declared last month, the government
banned all strikes in the country.
The ministry also stressed that it is continuing to weigh up the proposed deal
between Ucom and VEON and has not agreed to it yet.
A spokeswoman for Armenia’s Public Services Regulatory Commission likewise said:
“The deal has not been concluded and is still being examined.”
Russia -- People walk in the head office of Beeline, a brand owned by telecoms
group Vimpelcom, in Moscow, August 7, 2013.
Ucom’s acquisition of VEON Armenia also needs to be approved by another
regulatory body, the State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition.
Ucom’s mobile phone network was built and launched by the French telecom giant
Orange in 2009. The Armenian company bought it from Orange for an undisclosed
amount in 2015 after growing rapidly and becoming the country’s leading Internet
and cable TV service provider. The Yesayan brothers are widely credited with
turning Ucom into one of Armenia’s most successful businesses.
For its part, VEON paid $376 million to buy its Armenian phone networks from a
Greek firm in 2006. The company was headquartered in Moscow and known as
VimpelCom at the time. Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman’s LetterOne fund
remains VEON’s largest shareholder.
Government Set To Extend Coronavirus State Of Emergency
• Tatevik Lazarian
Armenia -- A message flashed on an outdoor advertising screen in Yerevan urges
people to stay at home because of the coronavirus outbreak, .
Armenia’s government looked set on Friday to extend by one month a state of
emergency which it declared on March 16 to try to slow the spread of coronavirus.
Emergency rule approved by the parliament was due to end on April 14. Sources
told RFE/RL’s Armenian service that the government is inclined it to extend it
until May 14.
Health Minister Arsen Torosian said that his ministry has recommended such an
extension. “I think that the state of emergency is very important,” he told
reporters
A draft government decision to that effect leaked to the Armenian press says
that a nationwide lockdown imposed on March 24 should also remain in force. It
argues that the coronavirus cases in the country are continuing to increase even
if the rate of new infections has slowed thanks to the serious restrictions on
people’s movement and the closure of many businesses.
Armenian health authorities reported 45 coronavirus cases as of March 16. Their
number has risen to 937 since then. Twelve people diagnosed with the highly
contagious disease have died so far.
The daily number of new cases recorded by the authorities dropped significantly
in the course of this week. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Wednesday
that Armenia may have already passed its peak of COVID-19 infections.
Health Minister Downplays Slower Spread Of Coronavirus In Armenia
• Anush Mkrtchian
Armenia --Health Minister Arsen Torosian gives a press conference, Yerevan,
.
Health Minister Arsen Torosian on Friday sounded a note of caution over a
decreased rate of new coronavirus cases in Armenia, saying that the epidemic is
not yet ending and requires continued “harsh” measures by the authorities.
According to the Armenian Ministry of Health, the total number of coronavirus
cases rose by less than 2 percent, to 937, in the past day. The ministry also
reported two more fatalities which raised the country’s coronavirus death toll
to 12.
The official figure marked the fifth consecutive day of a relatively slow spread
of the virus in the country. The daily number of COVID-19 infections rose by
over 10 percent earlier in April and in late March.
“We cannot reckon that the spread is stopping or dying down by 100 percent,”
said Torosian. “Why? Because while we previously had 50 cases [a day,] they
typically originated from a single source: for example, 50 employees of a large
manufacturing plant. Now we are having 16, 20 or 30 cases a day but from 10 or
20 different sources.”
This is making it harder for the authorities to identify and isolate people who
have been in contact with known COVID-19 patients, he told members of an
Armenian parliament committee on healthcare and social affairs.
“We must take these [epidemiological] actions as long as we can,” Torosian went
on. “When we become exhausted … we will have to give up some of these actions
and keep only testing and treatment and stop doing isolations because the spread
will be very serious and they won’t make sense.”
Armenia -- Healthcare workers are seen outside the Nork hospital in Yerevan
which deals with most coronavirus case in Armenia, March 20, 2020.
The Armenian government declared a state of emergency on March 16 and went on to
issue stay-at-home orders and close nonessential businesses in an effort to
contain the epidemic. It has to decide by Monday whether to extend the one-month
emergency rule and the resulting lockdown.
Torosian signaled support for such an extension, saying that the restrictions on
people’s movement have already saved hundreds of lives.
“All that is due to our measures taken in the last two months,” he said,
pointing to Armenia’s small death toll. “They are very harsh for the economy,
people’s psyche and the workload of medical personnel, but these are the results
we have at the moment.”
“Our task is to move forward while keeping the number of deaths and the burden
on hospitals low,” added the minister. “We now feel a bit more confident in
terms of the number of hospital beds and lung ventilation devices at our
disposal.”
Armenia imported 120 such ventilators, 60,000 coronavirus test kits, 340,000
medical masks, 100,000 pieces of protective medical clothing as well as
medication from China earlier this week. The medical supplies were purchased by
the Armenian government or donated by Chinese authorities and private
benefactors from the two countries.
Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian said on Friday that Armenia will receive
another 100,000 test kits “in the coming days.” He reaffirmed government plans
to significantly expand COVID-19 testing.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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