Thursday, June 4, 2020
U.S. Approves More Coronavirus Aid To Armenia
• Harry Tamrazian
Armenia -- U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy addresses members of the American Chamber
of Commerce in Yerevan, May 15, 2019.
The United States has allocated $5.4 million in fresh assistance to Armenia
designed to combat the coronavirus epidemic, U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy said on
Thursday.
In an interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian service, Tracy also voiced concern over
the growing number of coronavirus cases in the country while praising the
Armenian government’s intensifying efforts to get people to practice social
distancing, wear face masks and wash hands.
“Those are things that all of us can do and that I think can help turn around
the situation we’re seeing right now,” she said. “Obviously these high numbers
that we are seeing now are of concern, but it’s really the effort of all of us,
a unified effort, that I think is going to make a difference in fighting
COVID-19.”
“I’m also happy to say that the United States has been doing its best to
contribute and assist the government,” Tracy went on. “We have obtained $5.4
million of new assistance money that’s going in a number of directions to help
the government. We are also redirecting some of our existing money to help small
and medium businesses.
“So I have still some optimism that we can recover and be in a better place. But
it’s going to take a lot of work, I think, from everybody.”
In the envoy’s words, much of the fresh U.S. assistance will be channeled into
Armenian laboratories and healthcare services dealing with “the most severe
cases” of COVID-19. “We are continuing to talk to the [Armenian] government
about the needs that they have, and we are looking at what we have within the
U.S. capacity to help,” she said.
Washington announced its first coronavirus-related aid package for Armenia,
worth $1.1 million, in late March shortly after the Armenian government imposed
a nationwide lockdown to contain the first major outbreaks of the disease.
The government began easing those restrictions in mid-April and lifted virtually
all of them by the beginning of May. The number of coronavirus cases in the
country has increased sharply since then. Critics say that the government never
properly enforced the lockdown and ended it too soon.
Asked to commenting on that criticism, Tracy said: “The prime minister [Nikol
Pashinian] has been talking about some of the issues that he’s been trying to
balance, trying to balance protecting public health while also paying attention
to the fundamentals of the economy. It’s a tough balance to strike.”
“This is something that we are facing in the United States as well and in many
places around the world,” she said.
Armenian Gas Network Insists On Higher Prices
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia - The Gazprom Armenia headquarters in Yerevan, 31Oct2014.
Armenia’s Russian-owned national gas distribution company defended on Thursday
higher tariffs sought by it, saying that state regulators’ refusal to approve
them would put continued supplies of Russian gas to the country at risk.
The company controlled by Russia’s Gazprom formally asked the Public Services
Regulatory Commission (PSRC) on April 1 to allow it to raise its retail prices
by an average of 11 percent.
The Gazprom Armenia network argued that the cost of Russian gas supplied to
Armenian households and corporate consumer has remained unchanged since Gazprom
raised its wholesale price for Armenia from $150 to $165 per thousand cubic
meters in January 2019. The network has incurred major losses as a result.
The PSRC proposed on Monday that Gazprom Armenia settle for more modest price
rises that would average 4.6 percent. It also decided to hold a further
discussion on the issue with the company’s representatives and civil society
members.
The company’s chief executive, Hrant Tadevosian, insisted on its tariff demands
when he spoke during the three-hour meeting held on Thursday.
“If we carry on with current expenditures we will no longer be able to import
the 2 billion or 2.2 billion [cubic meters] of gas which we have imported until
now [annually,]” warned Tadevosian. “If the gas supply is interrupted for one or
two days I can guarantee that we will have very serious problems.”
“I’m not trying to scare you,” he said. “I just have to state the existing the
truth.”
Tadevosian added that higher tariffs would also allow Gazprom Armenia to make
230 billion drams ($474 million) in badly needed capital investments in the
network over the next 10 years.
In its tariff application sent to the PSRC, Gazprom Armenia offered to slightly
cut the gas price for the majority of households, which currently stands at an
equivalent of $290 per thousand cubic meters. However, it demanded the scrapping
of a 36 percent price discount enjoyed by low-income families.
The PSRC objected to this demand on Monday. It also urged the gas operator to
reconsider plans for a sizable increase in gas tariffs set for manufacturing and
agricultural firms.
The regulatory body is expected to make a final decision on the Gazprom Armenia
application later this month.
Shortly before Gazprom Armenia requested the price hikes, the Armenian
government urged the Russian energy giant to cut its wholesale gas price for
Armenia. It argued that global energy prices have collapsed because of the
coronavirus pandemic.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Russian President Vladimir Putin
discussed the matter by phone on April 6. They apparently failed to reach an
agreement.
Speaking at a May 19 video conference with fellow leaders of the Eurasian
Economic Union (EEU) member states, Putin rejected Armenia’s and Belarus’s calls
for the Russian-led trade bloc to set uniform energy tariffs which would reduce
the cost of Russian natural gas imported by them.
Court Revokes Arrest Warrant For Ex-President’s Son-In-Law
Armenia -- Former Armenian Ambassador to the Vatican Mikael Minasian.
Armenia’s Court of Appeals overturned on Thursday a lower court’s decision to
allow investigators to arrest Mikael Minasian, former President Serzh
Sarkisian’s fugitive son-in-law prosecuted on corruption charges denied by him.
Armenia’s State Revenue Committee (SRC) moved to arrest Minasian in late April
one month after charging him with illegal enrichment, false asset disclosure and
money laundering. A district court in Yerevan agreed to issue an arrest warrant
for him on May 6.
A bitter critic of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Minasian left Armenia shortly
after he was dismissed as the country’s ambassador to the Vatican in late 2018.
He has declined to reveal his current whereabouts in a series of video messages
posted on Facebook in recent weeks.
Minasian has said that he is not returning to Armenia because he believes that
investigators and judges dealing with his case are acting on Pashinian’s orders.
He has also accused Pashinian of corruption and misrule.
Pashinian has dismissed most of those accusations. The premier has repeatedly
accused Minasian of illegally making a huge fortune during Sarkisian’s rule.
A close Pashinian associate, deputy parliament speaker Alen Simonian, condemned
the Court of Appeals judge who revoked the arrest warrant.
“I believe this [decision] is vivid proof of the fact that the existing problem
within Armenia’s judicial system needs to be resolved as soon as possible,”
Simonian told reporters, according to the Armenpress news agency.
Minasian, 42, enjoyed considerable political and economic influence in the
country when it was ruled by his father-in-law from 2008-2018. He is also
thought to have developed extensive business interests in various sectors of the
Armenian economy.
One of Minasian’s lawyers, Amram Makinian, said on April 22 that the money
laundering charge brought against his client stems from large sums of cash which
he transferred from one of his bank accounts to another in 2017-2018. Makinian
also claimed that the other accusations are based on a “technical error”
committed by the employee of a private firm which drew up and filed Minasian’s
income declarations. He said that SRC investigators are refusing to summon that
person for questioning.
Armenian Tax Chief Resigns
Armenia -- Davit Ananian, head of the State Revenue Committee, arrives for a
news conference in Yerevan, July 9, 2019.
Davit Ananian, the head of Armenia’s State Revenue Committee (SRC), unexpectedly
resigned on Thursday.
Ananian gave no reasons for the resignation when he announced it on Facebook.
“In order to end rumors circulating in the media I want to inform that today I
tendered my resignation to the prime minister of Armenia,” he wrote.
“I want to thank everyone for effective and production cooperation and Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian for entrusting this important position to me for more
than two years,” he added without elaborating.
Pashinian did not immediately accept the resignation or make statements on it.
Ananian, 48, was appointed as head of the national tax and customs services in
May 2018 shortly after the “Velvet Revolution” that brought Pashinian to power.
He served as deputy finance minister in Armenia’s previous government. Former
Prime Minister Karen Karapetian had appointed him to that post in 2016.
According to his official biography, Ananian, 46, worked as a tax inspector in
the 1990s and ran a private tax and accounting consultancy from 2006-2016.
Ananian promised a tougher government crackdown on companies and individuals
evading taxes when he took over the SRC. The current government’s tax revenues
have risen significantly since then, a fact regularly emphasized by Pashinian.
Armenian Minister Warns Of COVID-19 Healthcare Collapse
Armenia -- A doctor wearing a face mask and protective gear gives a call as she
stands next to an ambulance at the Grigor Lusavorich Medical Center in Yerevan,
June 1, 2020
The daily number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Armenia continued to rise on
Thursday, with Health Minister Arsen Torosian warning that Armenian hospitals
may soon be unable to admit all infected people in need of urgent treatment.
The Ministry of Health said in the morning that 697 people tested positive for
coronavirus in the past day, which raised to 11,221 the total number of cases
registered in the country of about 3 million.
The ministry also reported 6 new coronavirus deaths. The official death toll
from the COVID-19 epidemic thus reached 176.
The figure does not include the deaths of 68 other citizens also infected with
the virus. The ministry claims that they died from other, pre-existing diseases.
It recorded 9 such fatalities on Wednesday.
Due to the accelerating spread of the virus the health authorities stopped late
last month hospitalizing or isolating individuals showing mild symptoms of the
disease or none at all.
“Only about 15-20 percent of the registered cases need hospitalization, while
the rest stay at home under the surveillance of primary healthcare bodies,”
Torosian told a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan.
“On a daily basis, almost manually, so to speak, we accommodate patients on the
existing hospital beds,” he said. “It is very important that we register a
substantial decrease in [infection] numbers so that we can keep up … this
process.”
“Or else, it will be very difficult to ensure all that,” he added.
Armenia -- Health Minister Arsen Torosian attends a cabinet meeting in Yerevan,
June 4, 2020.
Torosian earlier warned of an impending shortage of beds at the intensive care
units of hospitals treating COVID-19 patients. He said on Monday that dozens of
more such hospital beds will be made available in the coming days and weeks.
According to the health minister, 450 patients are in a serious or critical
condition at the moment.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian stated earlier in the day that “there are already
people in need of hospitalization whom we cannot hospitalize on time.” “Our
healthcare system is already bending downwards,” he said in a video message
livestreamed on Facebook.
During the ensuing cabinet meeting, Pashinian again complained about Armenians’
“widespread” noncompliance with safety rules. He singled out people’s failure to
observe social distancing when lining up outside commercial bank or post offices.
Central Bank Governor Artur Javadian and Minister of High-Tech Industry Hakob
Arshakian assured Pashinian that their respective agencies are taking effective
measures to get customers to stand away from each other outside those offices.
Torosian seemed more worried about COVID-19 infections reported among workers of
manufacturing enterprises. He said they are fraught with “big outbreaks” of the
disease in various parts of the country.
Armenia’s largest textile factory located in the northern city of Vanadzor was
forced to close for three days on Wednesday after at least 39 of its 2,600
employees tested positive for the virus.
The worsening coronavirus crisis is fuelling growing calls for the Armenian
government to re-impose a nationwide lockdown. Pashinian admitted earlier this
week that the health authorities are also favoring such a drastic move. But he
gave no indications on Thursday that it is imminent.
ARMENIA -- A woman wearing a protective facemask walks in central Yerevan, June
2, 2020
Instead, the prime minister again urged Armenians to wear face masks, practice
social distancing and frequently wash their hands. He reiterated that the
success of his government’s fight against the epidemic primarily depends on
their responsible behavior.
On Wednesday, the government decided to make it mandatory for every citizen to
wear a face mask or a cloth covering their mouth and nose not only in enclosed
spaces but also in the streets and all other public areas.
Critics of the government are skeptical about the effectiveness of this strategy
of containing the virus. They say that only a renewed lockdown can make a
difference.
The government had already issued stay-at-home orders, banned public transport
and shut down most businesses in late March. But it began gradually easing those
restrictions already in mid-April.
The daily number of new coronavirus cases recorded by the Ministry of Health has
skyrocketed since then. Critics say that the authorities never properly enforced
the lockdown and lifted it too soon.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2020 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.