Thursday, January 4, 2024
Armenian Officials Sacked Over Substandard Construction Work
• Karine Simonian
Armenia - Prime Minsiter Nikol Pashinian inspects a newly renovated school gym
in Lori province, January 3, 2024.
Two senior Armenian officials were sacked on Thursday one day after Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian witnessed the poor quality of construction financed by
his government during a visit to northern Lori province.
Pashinian inspected several schools and other facilities refurbished in local
rural communities during the trip designed to showcase the government’s
nationwide infrastructure projects. He was left fuming after noticing many flaws
in their design and construction overseen by the Armenian government’s Urban
Development Committee and the provincial administration.
Pashinian seemed particularly upset with what looked like substandard equipment
and furniture supplied to a newly renovated school gym in one of the Lori
villages.
“To summarize things briefly, I am very, terribly unhappy, and I will not
tolerate such a thing,” a government video of the trip showed him telling
officials accompanying him.
The government announced the dismissal of the head of the Urban Development
Committee, Armen Ghularian, and Lori Governor Aram Khachatrian as Pashinian
chaired its weekly meeting in Yerevan the following morning.
The premier spent 16 minutes sharing his impressions of what he saw in Lori and
complaining about what he called a “deeply entrenched” culture of inadequate
government-funded construction in Armenia.
“You touch a [school] hanger and it falls down, water drips everywhere you go,
not to mention the fact that for five months I didn’t manage to convince I don’t
know whom not to put transparent glass in toilets,” he said.
Armenia - Lori Governor Aram Khachatrian (left) and Armen Ghularian, head of the
Urban Development Committee.
“We no longer need officials who raise issues, we need officials who solve
issues,” added Pashinian.
Pashinian pledged to solve this and other problems, blamed by him on government
corruption, when he swept to power nearly six years ago. He has since claimed to
have eliminated “systemic corruption” in the country. His critics have dismissed
the claims.
There are growing questions about integrity in public procurement in Armenia.
This is one of the reasons why Transparency International downgraded the
country’s position in its annual survey of corruption perceptions around the
world released a year ago.
Most of the construction projects in Lori inspected by Pashinian were
implemented by a company contracted by the Urban Development Committee. The
company called T-Construction could not be reached for comment.
Khachatrian, the sacked provincial governor, is also a senior member of
Pashinian’s Civil Contract party. He told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that he
himself decided to resign right after Pashinian’s visit.
Armenian Government Reports Further Rise In Tax Revenue
Armenia -- The entrance to the State Revenue Committee headquarters in Yerevan,
November 29, 2018.
The Armenian government’s tax revenue rose by over 15 percent in 2023 amid
continuing robust economic growth, the head of the State Revenue Committee
(SRC), Rustam Badasian, said on Thursday.
Badasian told reporters that his agency collected a total of 2.22 trillion drams
($5.5 billion) in various taxes and duties. He said this was first and foremost
the result of its continued crackdown on tax evasion.
The SRC was also helped by the overall macroeconomic situation in Armenia. The
country’s Gross Domestic Product was on course to grow by 7-8 percent last year.
The Armenian economy expanded even faster, by 12 percent, in 2022 mainly because
of a surge in cash inflows from Russia resulting from Western sanctions against
Moscow. The government’s tax revenue jumped by 21 percent at the time.
The 2024 state budget approved by the Armenian parliament last month commits the
SRC to collecting 2.61 trillion drams in taxes. The figure would be equivalent
to almost 25 percent of GDP, Finance Minister Vahe Hovannisian told lawmakers.
It will not be enough to fully cover a 23 percent surge in government spending
this year projected at 3.2 trillion drams ($7.9 billion). The budget deficit
should therefore widen to 4.6 percent of GDP this year, according to government
projections.
The International Monetary Fund praised the Armenian authorities for planning to
further improve tax collection when it approved a “precautionary” loan worth
$170 million to them in December 2022.
Reposted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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