Sargis Harutyunyan
Senior Armenian state officials
tasked with combatting corruption have faced no investigations into
millions of dollars in financial aid which they and their wives claim to
have received from undisclosed sources in recent years.
The officials running the “oversight services” of President Serzh
Sarkisian, Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamian and the Armenian parliament
have reported such lavish financial contributions in their annual asset
declarations filed with the state Commission on the Ethics of
High-Ranking Officials.
So far none of them has been accused by the commission of using their
position to enrich themselves and their relatives. Nor are
law-enforcement authorities known to have investigated the origin of the
“donations” which Armenia’s leading anti-graft watchdog believes carry
serious “corruption risks.”
The presidential service headed by him is supposed to monitor use of
public funds by various government agencies and detect possible
instances of their embezzlement.
Sargis Grigorian manages a similar oversight division in the prime
minister’s office. He has reported no lavish donations and claims to
live off his monthly salary of 314,000 drams ($660). His wife, Armine
Kocharian, is apparently unemployed, having reported no financial
incomes to the anti-graft commission.
However, Kocharian somehow managed to receive $530,000 in loans from
Armenian banks from 2012-2014. She also admitted paying around $120,000
to buy several paintings last year.
Just how Grigorian’s wife secured the sizable loans is not clear.
Armenian banks are extremely unlikely to lend so much money to a regular
client who has no well-paid job.
The wife of Gagik Mkrtumian, a senior official at the parliamentary
Audit Chamber, claimed to have received last year $100,000 in
“donations” in addition to earning 180,000 drams ($380) per month.
Karine Mazmanian too did not disclose the source of the cash.
The wife of Ishkhan Zakarian, the controversial Audit Chamber chief,
reported a single and far more modest donation: $15,000. Zakarian’s
asset declaration says that Gayane Soghomonian received the money in
2011.
The sum pales in comparison with the conspicuous wealth of Zakarian.
Two years ago he was forced by opposition lawmakers to comment on
sources of funding for his newly built villa in Yerevan reportedly worth
millions of dollars. Zakarian said that the mansion’s construction was
mainly financed by Albert Boyajian, an Armenian-American businessman
described by him as his “friend.”
For the Anti-Corruption Center (ACC), the Armenian branch of the
Berlin-based group Transparency International, these financial
statements are a cause for serious concern.
“Such donations can be considered to be transactions fraught with
high risks of corruption,” Artak Manukian, an ACC expert, told RFE/RL’s
Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) on Friday. Manukian said that they would
at least be investigated in many countries that are “really fighting
against corruption.”
Siranush Sahakian, the chairwoman of the Commission on the Ethics of
High-Ranking Officials, last month could not name a single state
official who the anti-graft body believes has enriched themselves
through abuse of power. The remarks suggest that the commission has
never scrutinized the “donations.”
No such investigations have been reported by Armenian law-enforcement
bodies either. They declined on Friday to respond to RFE/RL inquiries
on the subject.
This stance will only fuel more skepticism about the Armenian
government’s stated efforts to tackle widespread bribery, nepotism and
other corrupt practices.
The government pledged to reinvigorate those efforts in February when
it announced plans to set up a new Anti-Corruption Council that will be
headed by Prime Minister Abrahamian and comprise several ministers and
other top state officials. It also urged the political parties
represented in the Armenian parliament and civic groups to nominate
their representatives to the council. None of those groups expressed
readiness to join the body.
Armenia ranked, along with four African states, 94th of 174 countries
and territories evaluated in the Transparency International’s most
recent Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released last December. It
occupied the same position in the 2013 CPI which covered 177 nations.
RFE/RL Armenian service (Azatutyun.am), June 5, 2015
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