Former Deputy Minister of Transport and Communications Arthur Arakelyan Charged in Criminal Case

Days ago, the Investigative Committee announced that a criminal case has been initiated regarding misconduct during the operations of the South Caucasus Railway Company, involving a responsible official from the Ministry of Transport, Communications, and Information Technologies of the Republic of Armenia. Aysor.am has managed to clarify that this concerns former Deputy Minister Arthur Arakelyan.

Previously, according to a statement issued by the Investigative Committee, the preliminary investigation revealed that by the decision No. 83-A of the Government of Armenia dated February 7, 2008, a concession agreement was signed on February 13, 2008, between the Government of Armenia, representing the Ministry of Transport and Communications, the South Caucasus Railway Closed Joint-Stock Company, and Russian Railways Public Joint-Stock Company. This agreement allowed the use of Armenia’s railway infrastructure for a period of 30 years and stipulated investments of 122.348 billion AMD in railway infrastructure and 52.209 billion AMD in rolling stock during the contract period.

According to Part 2 of Article 14.1 of the mentioned agreement, during its validity, the empowered authority—the ministry—was granted the right to conduct inspections annually to ascertain compliance with the terms of the agreement and legislative requirements, provided that written notice is given to the concessionaire at least 15 working days in advance.

In this regard, a contract was signed between the ministry and an auditing company for the provision of audit services valued at 40,020,000 AMD, to conduct a financial and technical audit at the South Caucasus Railway CJSC.

As a result of the audit, a report was prepared and submitted in February 2015 to the South Caucasus Railway CJSC and the ministry regarding the company’s activities from 2008 to 2013, which recorded several financial irregularities related to the company’s operations, including 428 million AMD of uncompleted construction works in the railway infrastructure investments.

The preliminary investigation obtained information indicating that the activities of the railway administration were coordinated by the Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications, who, failing to receive justified clarifications and recommendations from the South Caucasus Railway CJSC regarding the irregularities recorded in the audit conclusion, did not report the financial irregularities identified in the audit report, numerous violations of obligations set forth in the concession agreement, including the uncompleted construction works worth 428 million AMD, to law enforcement agencies based on group interests.

As a result, it is reported that 428 million AMD was embezzled from investment funds, and no measures were taken to rectify the multiple financial irregularities recorded during the investment process or to compel the South Caucasus Railway CJSC to fulfill its obligations under the concession agreement in a timely and proper manner.

Given that data were obtained during the preliminary investigation regarding the apparent abuse of official powers by the ministry’s responsible official—the Deputy Minister—a new criminal case was opened under Part 2 of Article 308 of the RA Criminal Code for “Abuse of official powers that resulted in grave consequences.” This has been forwarded according to jurisdiction to the Special Investigative Service of Armenia.

For further details, refer to the original source website.