“There Will Be Sensational Cases”: Romanos Petrosyan on the PSRC’s Investigations in Over 50 Bodies

The State Control Service is currently monitoring over 50 state and community bodies. Romanos Petrosyan, the head of the service, announced this in an interview with Sputnik Armenia, promising to publish the results in the next 1-2 weeks.

“Naturally, there will be sensational cases. I regret to say that this will be the case, as the task of the State Control Service is not only to uncover possible violations and misuse of state resources and to prevent them in cooperation with law enforcement agencies but also to enhance the effectiveness of management in state governance bodies,” Petrosyan stated.

The supervision also covers the Yerevan City Hall. According to Petrosyan, the abuses uncovered in this structure will be summarized at the end of the current month. However, reports on several facts have already been submitted to the RA Prosecutor General’s Office.

The findings have also not overlooked regional local self-governments. According to Romanos Petrosyan, instances of discriminatory approaches in procurement competitions announced in various communities are being uncovered.

“The community leader wants to acquire an expensive SUV service vehicle through public procurement from the community budget, and the procurement process is carried out with discriminatory criteria, so that on paper, everything seems to be in order, but ultimately, a person related to them is declared the winner, with whom they had previously agreed on the purchase of the vehicle,” Petrosyan said, adding that such cases have been identified in more than 10 communities across the country.

The community leaders have been warned to cancel the announced competitions. Romanos Petrosyan did not wish to disclose the names of these communities and their leaders, noting that he does not consider it correct. Instead, Petrosyan revealed that in just one community, the cancellation of a competition due to the PSRC’s disclosures prevented the purchase of an SUV worth 32 million drams. He indicated that there have been about ten such communities over several months.

According to him, these cases are also a result of legislative shortcomings. For instance, while the technical specifications for official vehicles of heads of state management bodies are defined by law, there are no restrictions for heads of local self-governments, which creates room for abuse.

“In a very impoverished community, where there isn’t even a kindergarten or has issues with roads, irrigation networks, and other problems, community leaders decide to acquire expensive SUVs for themselves,” Petrosyan said, adding that he has already suggested to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance to amend the law to establish technical specifications for community leaders' vehicles.

The head of the PSRC did not wish to reveal which political forces the mentioned community leaders are from. Instead, he assured that there are no reservations in the PSRC's work due to this circumstance.

In the interview, Petrosyan also addressed the three ongoing control cases in the Ministry of Defense, not ruling out that sensational revelations could also arise from these. He also disclosed that as a result of preventing abuses uncovered in 50 state and community bodies, it has been possible to save or restore several dozen billion drams to the budget. Moreover, he noted that the larger the budget, the greater the amount of abuse committed by that body.