Unfortunately, I cannot confidently give a positive response. Pashinyan dissatisfied with anti-corruption efforts

Despite the unprecedented scale of the fight against corruption, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is not satisfied with the results. He made this statement during a meeting held at the government today, adding that the public is also dissatisfied with the outcomes of the fight against corruption.

Addressing the unprecedented volumes of efforts against corruption, Pashinyan presented statistics from 2019. According to him, the Special Investigation Service has recovered 4 billion 331 million drams through criminal cases, which is seven times more than the total recovery from service-related cases throughout the history of the SIS. The Prime Minister assured that a similar or approximately similar situation exists in other law enforcement agencies; the National Security Service has recovered 1371% more money in 2019 compared to 2017, the Investigative Committee 462% more, and the police 107% more.

“These statistics are impressive, I would say sensational. We have recovered $150 million in damage from corruption cases since the revolution. If we exclude the recoveries made by the NSS, our figures would be halved,” said Pashinyan.

After presenting this data, the Prime Minister posed a question: can we claim that losses inflicted on the state by corrupt acts over the past 30 years have been recovered? “Definitely not,” he answered his own question, adding that he also acknowledges the existing objective and subjective difficulties, the scarcity of professional staff, the lengthy nature of cases, and the overload on investigators.

“Some of these are objective and justified. But on the other hand, time is passing, and this provides opportunities for corrupt individuals to flee the country or conceal, disguise the traces of their crimes. There are more alarming issues; when any particular corruption scheme is connected to a former or current high-ranking official, but our law enforcement bodies do not find evidence to prove those connections, it discredits our law enforcement system and the fight against corruption in general. As a result, some corrupt individuals have been able to leave the country, and those cases have hit a dead end,” the Prime Minister noted.

According to him, the main reason for this is that there have literally been traitors at the top of the law enforcement system, who have been guided by other calculations and other assignments.

“But can we say today that the law enforcement system is fully implementing the fight against corruption? Unfortunately, I cannot confidently give a positive response to that. Without being evasive, let’s say that there has never been a real fight against corruption in Armenia, and therefore the comparison cannot be favorable or objective with anything. I have received a mandate from the people to recover those stolen billions. And I expect that law enforcement agencies will fulfill the expectations of the people,” Pashinyan stated.

He also emphasized that all of this should not be interpreted as actions against legal entrepreneurial activities. According to the Prime Minister, there is only one challenge before legal business: to pay taxes, to become wealthy and to enrich others.