State Agencies Make Purchases Without Tender from Company Owned by Prime Minister’s Family

State agencies are making purchases without a tender from a company owned by the Prime Minister's family. Documents in the hands of Alternativ.am prove that the newspaper "Haykakan Zhamanak" benefits from state sponsorship. The media outlet, which operates under the commercial name "Dareskizb" LLC (managed by Manavazyans), has repeatedly won contracts from various state agencies, executed through single-person procurement processes at prices significantly higher than their logical value.

The media outlet mentions at least two instances concerning this matter, which we are presenting for your attention:

Thus, "Dareskizb" LLC signed a contract with the Tourism Committee of the Ministry of Economic Development and Investments of Armenia, agreeing to provide printing services in newspapers (March 19, 2019). This was conducted without announcing a tender, and the service was offered to a well-known editorial office.

"Dareskizb" LLC also signed a contract with the State Property Management Committee, agreeing to carry out printing for state needs in newspapers (August 19, 2019). Again, this acquisition was made without announcing a tender process and for a considerable amount.

Before the rise of this company's employees to power, according to data from the Ministry of Finance's procurement system Armeps.am, it had a contract valued at 150,000 drams to provide printing services to the State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition. After the revolution, the total amount of contracts has reached about 2 million drams, with contracts exceeding 1 million drams in 2019 and 840,000 drams this year.

According to the media outlet, the founder of this LLC is Petros Makeyan, the president of the "Democratic Homeland" party, who was a teammate of Nikol Pashinyan in the Armenian National Congress. Currently, the position of the director of this LLC is held by Arusyak Manavazyan, a member of the "Civil Contract" party, who was listed as number 112 on the party's electoral list in the parliamentary elections. According to the electoral list submitted to the Central Electoral Commission, prior to this, Arusyak was the accountant for "Dareskizb" LLC.

As for the transaction amounts, one of the contracts involved printing informational materials worth over 918,000 drams for the State Property Management Committee, which was under the Ministry of Economic Development and Investments at that time.

As a postscript, we should add that while Pashinyan spoke about "unaccounted sources of pockets" when he was in the opposition, we are now faced with "known pockets" where state budget funds are flowing. Who owns "Haykakan Zhamanak" ("Dareskizb" LLC)? As the classics would say, even a kindergarten child knows.