Government Actions Damage the Reputation of the 'Armenia' All-Armenian Fund - Kocharyan

The second President of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, participated yesterday in a remote meeting of the Board of Trustees of the 'Armenia' All-Armenian Fund. He shared his thoughts on the issues at hand through a Facebook post.

"The discussion centered around the reporting issue regarding the 52 billion drams transferred from the Fund to the government during the war in Artsakh. My impression from the discussion is concerning. The Prime Minister unequivocally stated that the 52 billion drams were recorded in the budget and spent from the general pot of all budget expenses, and that it's impossible to specify what the charitable donations were spent on. However, according to the agreement with the Fund, the government is obliged to provide a report on the received funds. It is clear that these funds should have been deposited into a special government account opened specifically for this purpose and spent from that account for the urgent needs dictated by the war. In that case, there would have been no issues related to accountability.

I do not know whether this has been done intentionally or as a result of negligence, but in fact, the reputation of the 'Armenia' All-Armenian Fund is seriously damaged due to the government's actions. The Prime Minister's verbal assurances regarding the utilized funds absolutely do not inspire confidence. I cannot trust the assurances of a government that throughout the war cynically deceived its own people by concealing the actual situation on the front lines and continues to hide the number of casualties, missing persons, and prisoners even four months after the war's end.

In this context, the statement made on behalf of the Board of Trustees is incomprehensible to me. How can one be certain in advance that the Fund's resources will be used purposefully when the documentation confirming expenditures is completely absent? In the current situation, no audit will bring clarity but will only reinforce existing suspicions. The only correct solution I see to this situation is to classify the 52 billion drams as a debt of the government to the Fund, to be returned over 3-5 years. The 'Armenia' Fund, in turn, should spend this money on numerous projects aimed at addressing the needs of Artsakh," wrote Kocharyan.