Call to Close Public TV Case: Various Officials' Names Mentioned - Edik Baghdasaryan

The former chairman of the Public Television and Radio Company Ruben Jaghinyan and the director of Public Television Margarita Grigoryan remain under governmental protection, as noted by Edik Baghdasaryan, editor of Hetq, on his Facebook page.

He added that it is still unclear who is demanding the closure of the Public TV case from the Investigative Committee. Different officials' names are being mentioned, including Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan, Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Alen Simonyan, and some influential people from Russia, but this is not significant at the moment.

The newly elected chairman of the Public Television and Radio Council, Ara Shirinyan, stated yesterday in parliament that he does not think the allegations previously made against H1’s executive director Margarita Grigoryan were substantiated. Since Hetq has also reported on Public TV and continues to investigate the documents that are being gradually obtained to fully understand the mechanism through which the funds of Public TV were misused, I suspect that Ara Shirinyan may not be fully aware of the situation at Public TV.

The Investigative Committee has informed us that the damage amounts to 183,598,200 drams, of which 174,728,700 drams have been recovered by the Public Television Company, while organizations responsible for construction work have recovered damages of 8,869,500 drams.

Do you know how this was recovered? According to a government decision dated December 7, 2017, the Government allocated 174,728,700 drams from the contingency fund to the Public Television of Armenia. In other words, the Government has assumed the damages inflicted on the state.

The Ministry of Finance has uncovered that the Public Television Company signed contracts worth approximately 5 million dollars (2 billion 400 million drams) with various organizations and individual entrepreneurs during 2015-2016 for the acquisition of television programs, films, and technical equipment for the production of these programs. An insider from the Ministry of Finance mentioned that following their investigation, the actual scale of misuse was much greater; however, due to various processes, it has now been minimized to 183.5 million drams. All copies of these documents are with the Investigative Committee, but they have decided not to clarify anything. It seems that soon the case will be closed under the pretext of not having a criminal composition.