26 Million Dram Misappropriations in Food Supply Sector for Hotels During COVID-19

The State Interests Protection Department of the Republic of Armenia's Prosecutor General's Office examined the implementation of food provision processes for isolated individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic based on documents received from the Ministry of Economy and the Audit Chamber of Armenia.

The Prosecutor's Office reports that the investigation revealed that within the framework of the program "Providing Conditions for Isolated Individuals Due to Coronavirus (COVID-19)," approved by the Government of the Republic of Armenia on March 28, 2020, the Ministry of Economy purchased food provision services from four companies.

Based on the Government's decision No. 296-A dated March 12, 2020, these transactions were conducted without concluding written contracts due to the pandemic, with payments made on the basis of invoices and waybills. A total of 23 tax invoices and waybills were issued in the period from April to September 2020, indicating that approximately 32,000 isolated individuals were provided with food worth about 149,000,000 AMD at hotels including Golden Palace, Zartonk, Tsaghkadzor Writers' House, Tsaghkadzor Nairi, Marriott, Minotel, Nare, Nork Residence, and Sports Base.

The tax invoices and waybills were accepted by the authorized officials of the Ministry of Economy. However, according to data from the Ministry of Health, the number of isolated individuals in the aforementioned hotels from April to September was around 26,000.

This indicates that based on the data from the Ministry of Health and the issued tax invoices, the state overpaid approximately 23,000,000 AMD for food, accounting for around 6,000 individuals who were not present. The documents obtained indicate that the responsible persons from the mentioned companies took advantage of the situation created by the pandemic to issue tax invoices and waybills containing false data regarding the food provided to approximately 6,000 absent individuals. By submitting these to the Ministry of Economy, they fraudulently misappropriated significant amounts of money intended for food allocated to these absent individuals.

Due to negligence or carelessness by the responsible officials of the Ministry of Economy, the tax invoices and waybills were accepted without verifying the authenticity of the presented data, leading to severe consequences for the state.

Given the presence of sufficient evidence indicating characteristics of an apparent crime, a criminal case has been initiated based on Articles 178 (parts 1 and 2), 325 (part 1), and 315 (part 2) of the RA Criminal Code. The criminal case has been sent to the Investigative Committee for further investigation.