Expensive Chocolates and Coffee: Yerevan Municipality's Latest Purchases

The Yerevan Municipality seems to prefer premium chocolates and coffee. According to procurement data obtained by Lurer.com from the armeps system, the municipality purchased high-quality chocolates weighing a total of 30 kilograms a month ago, including six to seven types. They ordered ten kilograms of 'Raffaello', while the remaining 20 kilograms included various brands such as 'Alenka', 'Belochka', 'Mishka', 'Vecherniy Zvon', 'Krasnaya Shapochka', and 'Vdakhnaveni'. The city government paid 8,888 drams per kilogram, totaling 266,000 drams for the chocolates with a delivery deadline set for September 30.

Additionally, the municipality has also purchased one kilogram of 'Monarch' instant coffee at a price of 39,000 drams, amounting to a total of 300,000 drams. Furthermore, the municipality has a penchant for nuts; this year, they spent 360,000 drams on 'popcorn' nuts, purchasing 40 kilograms at 9,000 drams per kilogram. They paid 47,000 drams for eight kilograms of black coffee, bought 20 kilograms of sugar for 7,000 drams, and six kilograms of sugar for 6,000 drams. The chocolates, coffee varieties, and 'popcorn' were all procured from the company 'Blammo'.

Remarkably, this company was established on November 25, 2019, during the current administration. According to corporate registry data, the founder is Martin Sargsyan. Even more noteworthy is the fact that 'Blammo' only had one employee as of June 30, 2020, according to payments made to the military supply fund as part of the '1000 dram' initiative. Moreover, there is no option to review the previous month’s payments for this company, as is possible with other companies.

Despite having only an eight-month operational history, 'Blammo' has been supplying millions of drams worth of products to other government institutions since 2020. For example, the Ministry of Finance acquired cleaning services worth 8.4 million drams in March this year, the Investigative Committee purchased office supplies for 3.4 million drams, the State Supervision Service received household and economic products costing 1.4 million drams, the Prime Minister's Office bought flowers worth 2 million drams, and the Ministry of Defense purchased pasta for 6 million drams, among others. Additionally, 'Blammo' has provided services to other government bodies costing nearly one million drams. It is intriguing how a company with less than a year of history is receiving orders for purchases worth millions of drams from state entities.