Yerevan City Council "Light" Faction Leader Davit Khajakyan on Multimillion-Dollar Scam

Yerevan City Council "Light" faction leader Davit Khajakyan has raised alarms regarding illegal practices in the construction sector. On his Facebook page, the opposition figure elaborated: "I thought state bodies would speak out about this situation, but since they remain silent, I will speak up myself. The Prime Minister could have also addressed this today, but for some reason, the topic was not touched upon."

According to the Armenian legislation on procurement, any capital construction requires separate technical supervision by another private organization. In other words, there are effectively two separate tenders announced for construction work and its technical supervision. Last year, Yerevan faced a neglected situation regarding technical supervision, likely attributable to the inexperience of city authorities. What has transpired over the past weeks is almost unimaginable.

Now, in sequence: On January 9, 2020, the company "ETALON GROUP" LLC received state registration and subsequently applied for tenders for technical supervision of construction work nationwide, winning mainly by quoting minimal rates. On February 20, 2020, the same newly established company participated in the tender announced by the city hall for supervising asphalt paving work, and as the sole participant, was awarded a contract valued at 35 million drams. With the relevant government decision, the company also provided a bank guarantee, which is necessary to win the tender.

Now comes the most significant revelation: it has been discovered that the bank guarantee presented by the newly formed "ETALON GROUP" is FORGED, meaning that the document submitted for the tender was not issued by a bank but fabricated. This is evidenced by several official documents. As you are aware, during this time, asphalt paving works were carried out in the city and across the country, and you can already imagine the quality of oversight based on the aforementioned facts.

As for the asphalt paving in Yerevan, taking some main streets as examples, I must say that such poor-quality asphalt has not been seen in the capital for a long time. Incidentally, following the internal disclosure of this whole situation, asphalt paving work in certain areas of the city has continued (and is ongoing) without technical supervision, which is both illegal and has become one of the factors leading to substandard asphalt paving. I cannot say why the authorities, who are fiercely fighting corruption, are not addressing this issue, but it certainly requires a thorough investigation. The main question remains: Could this scam have been executed without the patronage of state officials…?