Yerevan City Hall Has Underpaid Sanitek International by 330 Million AMD: Nikola El Taouil

Nikola El Taouil, Director of the Armenian branch of Sanitek and Sanitek International LLC, has sent a letter to Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutyan. The full text of the letter is presented below:

“To Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutyan, from Nikola El Taouil, Director of Sanitek LLC Armenian branch and Sanitek International LLC,

Dear Mayor, you have repeatedly publicly stated that the only obligation of the City Hall toward the Sanitek company is to make payments, which is being carried out unwaveringly. However, for anyone familiar with the contract and Armenian legislation, it is clear that making payments cannot be the only obligation of the community. A vivid example of this is the persistent violation by you of the procedure for waste collection and the designation of locations for waste bins in Yerevan, which is defined by the law and characterized by ‘some map and procedure’ and ‘incomprehensible’ regulations, an obligation of the Yerevan community whose absence leads to waste collection being carried out by the entity you created in a gross violation of the law and without any basis.

However, it has become evident as of today that another part of your statements does not correspond to reality, as currently, the Yerevan City Hall has underpaid more than 330 million AMD in total across two contracts, violating the payment deadlines specified in the contract. It is noteworthy that a part of this amount is attributed solely to penalties you have persistently enjoined under the contract (which we are disputing in court), while the payment of the other part has not been made with no justification and in violation of the contract.

As a result of all this, the operation of waste collection and sanitation operators in Yerevan is now ultimately at risk, under conditions where the contractual provisions and reserves of the company cannot be sufficient for performing operations. Therefore, we hereby notify that the substandard provision of services by our companies is due to the Yerevan City Hall’s violation of its payment obligations defined in the contract.

We have warned you many times about such potential consequences; the last notification was sent by our contract manager on August 28, 2019. Consequently, providing the services mentioned in your notices of compliance and failure is becoming impossible, and this impossibility has arisen exclusively due to the failure of the Yerevan City Hall to make payments. This impossibility will continue as long as the Yerevan City Hall does not fulfill its payment obligations in full.

Considering this, please treat this letter as a general response to the notices you have provided until the situation changes. Once again, we urge you to fulfill your payment obligations as specified in the contract in full. Thank you in advance.

Respectfully, Nikola El Taouil.”