The Public Thinks They Are Paying HEC, But That's Not the Case: Ghazinyan

The former acting director of HEC, David Ghazinyan, addressed the statement by the temporary manager of HEC, Romanos Petrosyan, regarding their success in saving billions at a press conference. 'There is no such thing; no money has been saved. The current management of HEC has decided with their team not to pay the contractors and not to pay the municipality, resulting in funds remaining within HEC,' said Ghazinyan.

He also noted that the municipality has imposed a fee for new connections, set at 10,000 drams per meter of line. 'For some reason, the public thinks they are paying HEC, but that is not the case. Isn't it a problem for economic operators that if, for example, 100 meters need to be dug to lay cables, the potential subscriber will pay an extra 1 million drams to the municipality as a fee? They boast about conducting an audit at HEC, but such audits have been continuously conducted by international organizations until 2023. In 2023-24, the Public Services Regulatory Commission held tenders, but then annulled its own tenders. This is why no audit has been conducted,' he explained.

Ghazinyan also responded to another statement from the authorities claiming that purchases were solely from their own company, noting that this is not the case. 'There is a tender where 3-4 companies competed, which involved substantial work. At that time, HEC decided not to delegate the work to several companies to make supervision easier.'

Addressing complaints regarding connections, Ghazinyan stated that they have not been made due to the lack of permission from the municipality. 'A serious official, who according to my information is even more previous than past officials, was talking about attracting loans and paying salaries. I want to inform that the public has not paid any interest on loans attracted by HEC; all interest on those loans has been paid by the owner from their profit. In other words, such statements are illiteracy,' he added.