2018 November 7

Anti-Corruption Daily

Anti-Corruption Nov/7/2018: Ministry of Nature Protection employees under criminal invstg.; Businessman accuses Serj's administration of intimidation; Kotayk gov finds illegal dealings in a municipality; VEOLIA Water fined for anti-competitive practices; (More below...)
by ar_david_hh

All the accused are innocent until proven guilty by the court of law. Currency in Armenian Drams unless specified otherwise.

Businessman Khachatur Sugiasyan says the former president Serj Sargsyan’s brother Sashik “50/50” Sargsyan didn’t allow him to freely conduct his business under the previous administration. He was prohibited from importing certain products monopolized by the ruling party's circles, and some of his businesses were even stolen. He says the illegal practices have stopped beginning Pashinyan's election. https://factor.am/97021.html

Kotayk governor's office has audited Qasakh municipality and found numerous violations. The municipality office is accused of embezzling state-owned properties, waste of resources, theft of funds by falsifying the cost of purchased products. The information has been sent to the prosecutors. https://hetq.am/hy/article/97937

Prosecutor’s office launches a criminal investigation against the employees of Ministry of Nature Protection for purposely ignoring the lack of water meters in hundreds of small hydro-power plants for several years, and allowing them to operate illegally. The revelations were made public recently after PM Pashinyan’s newly formed water abuse committee found violations in 95% of small hydros http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/147943

Veolia Water company has been fined again, this time by AMD 20mln for anti-competitive practices and abuse of monopoly powers to import water meters in a way that harmed the competition. Armenia-based meter producing company had recently asked the authorities to investigate Violia’s Chinese meter importing practices. http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/147915

Investigative Committee (separate from SIS) releases their anti-corruption numbers. 178 criminal charges have been brought against various government officials for embezzlement and other forms of corruption, beginning 2018. http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/147944

The 2019 budget for Ministry of Nature Protection has been increased by 58% https://armenpress.am/arm/news/953642.html

Ministry of Health will increase the average doctor salary by 35% next year. Nurses to get a 50% raise. There was already another pay raise this year.

... the Ministry will spend AMD 100mln on contracts with organizations that can provide creative campaigns against smoking http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/147914

... Health Ministry budget will increase by 10% https://factor.am/97001.html

... the healthcare industry grew by 30% in the past several months, after the new administration begun fighting against the grey economy within the industry. Ministry has begun issuing more subsidies to hospitals that report higher out-of-pocket expenditure by non-government subsidized patients. This encourages hospitals to fully report their real income, so they can get "free cash" from the government in the form of subsidizes. This is the second major anti-corruption policy in recent times. http://panarmenian.net/m/arm/news/262035 ---- https://youtu.be/jh-Pqjv7ESA?t=120

Social security budget to increase by 8.5% on 2019 https://news.am/arm/news/479826.html

Three ethnic Armenians, including one whose ancestors escaped the Genocide, win a seat in the US House of Representatives. Several known pro-Armenian politicians have been re-elected. https://armenpress.am/arm/news/953612.html

The city of Los Angeles has congratulated Artsakh with the 30th anniversary of Artsakh movement and its subsequent independence https://factor.am/97226.html

Link to original report: https://ww.reddit.com/r/armenia/comments/9v2ncw/anticorruption_nov72018_ministry_of_nature/