Khajakyan on Chain of Misappropriations Reaching Hundreds of Millions of Drams

I will speak about misappropriations reaching hundreds of millions of drams, as state bodies have preferred to remain silent about this for weeks. This was stated by Davit Khajakyan, the head of the "Lus" faction of the Yerevan Council of Elders, in a live broadcast on his Facebook page.

"Neither the prosecutor's office nor the city hall has spoken about the damage caused to the state and the community. This concerns public procurements. According to the law on public procurements, any capital construction requires separate technical oversight by another private organization. This means that two contests are effectively declared regarding construction: one for the actual construction works and the other for their technical oversight. What has happened in recent weeks is hard to even imagine.

In October 2019, the government made a change in one of its decisions that put many builders and technical oversight organizations in a difficult position. The state requires an excessively large bank guarantee from these organizations to participate in contests, which leads many to decide against participating under such conditions. On January 9, 2020, "Etalon Group" LLC received state registration and began applying for contests to carry out technical oversight of construction works across the country, winning with a minimum bid.

On February 20, 2020, this organization participated in the contest announced by the Yerevan municipality for oversight of asphalting works and, being the only participant, secured a contract worth about 35 million drams. By government decision, the organization also submitted a bank guarantee, which is necessary to win the contest.

And now the most remarkable thing has come to light: it turns out that the bank guarantee presented by the newly established organization is fake. This means that the document submitted for the contest was not issued by the bank but was forged. Days ago, the municipality terminated the contract signed with that organization.

In March, the Yerevan municipality announced another major contest, this time for the renovation of multi-apartment buildings. If the previous one was simply a technical oversight contest, this one involves large-scale construction works. For this contest, a significant portion of the bids was submitted by "RashnVoyaj" LLC, which was also created in the post-revolutionary period, in January 2019. This organization would have benefited from a contest worth 600 million drams and more if it had not been discovered that it too had presented a forged bank guarantee," Khajakyan stated.

"Naturally, the question arises: are these companies interconnected, and were the documents for the bank guarantees forged at their own risk?" noted the "Lus" representative. He also referred to these companies, indicating that according to the documents, the director of "RashnVoyaj" LLC is Vahagn Qalumyan. This surname sounds familiar to me. He is the godfather of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the acting mayor of Ijevan, Haik Qalumyan, who has held that position since September 2019. Another Qalumyan I recognize is Vahe Qalumyan from the "My Step" faction, known for his involvement in an altercation in parliament, who is the cousin of the Prime Minister's godfather. Vahe Qalumyan served as the deputy executive director of the Ijevan "Janshin" administration from 2003-2006 and then as the first deputy executive director from 2006-2015. I believe he has significant participation in tenders.

While I cannot specify the exact familial connection with Vahagn Qalumyan, I can only say that they refer to each other as nephews. I believe law enforcement is already aware of all this. Whether a criminal case has been opened, I cannot say, but I can state that two weeks have passed since the bank informed the municipality that no such guarantee was issued and that the document presented by Qalumyan is fake.

The question arises: could these businessmen have engaged in such actions without political guarantees? Were they confident that their plans would not be disrupted and that the banking organization would not report them to law enforcement? Just don’t say that we decided to publish this tomorrow; I got ahead of myself," Khajakyan concluded.