New Arrests Possible in Bus Procurement Case, Says 'Zhoghvorod'

New details have emerged regarding the procurement of Zhongtong buses from China, reports the 'Zhoghvorod' newspaper.

It should be noted that the Anti-Corruption Committee is currently conducting an investigation into the acquisition of Zhongtong buses. The Yerevan City Municipality held a tender for purchasing buses from Chinese Zhongtong Bus Company back in 2021. Following the election of former mayor Hrachya Sargsyan, the tender was canceled. A new tender was announced, which again had the same winning bidder.

It is noteworthy that both contracts had almost identical content and technical specifications for the buses. According to our sources within the law enforcement system, the tender was canceled directly on Hrachya Sargsyan's orders. Furthermore, Hrachya Sargsyan appointed his close associate Hayk Hovhannisyan as the chairman of the board of directors of the Metro, who then contacted the Chinese company and engaged in the 'patriotic' effort to enhance Yerevan's transportation system.

The newspaper notes that this 'patriotism' would not have been complete if officials had not arranged their 'rewards' in advance for the services provided to the public. This 'reward' was organized by taking advantage of currency fluctuations. For each of the 150 buses, 44,249,499 AMD was paid. It is clear that payments were made to the Chinese not in Armenian drams, but in US dollars. In 2021, the price of each bus amounted to around 86,000 USD, calculated at an exchange rate of 518 AMD per dollar. In 2022, when the exchange rate was equivalent to 405 AMD per dollar, the contract price for the same bus increased to approximately 109,000 USD. Due to the canceled tender and the subsequent second tender under the same conditions, the price of each bus increased by more than 22,000 USD.

According to information obtained from law enforcement sources, the resulting 'brokerage fee' amounted to about 30 percent, part of which was received in Dubai, while the aforementioned Hayk Hovhannisyan, along with the former mayor Hrachya Sargsyan's brother living in Dubai, 'managed' the work locally. The investigation by the Anti-Corruption Committee is ongoing, and it is not ruled out that we might witness new arrests in the near future.

According to the municipality's data, the public transport fleet of Yerevan was supplemented in 2023 with 150 Zhongtong buses and 87 MAN buses of European manufacture. For more details, refer to today’s newspaper issue.