2018 November 8

Anti-Corruption Daily

by ar_david_hh

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

Two more high ranking managers of St. Gregory Illuminator hospital are charged with corruption and falsification of documents. Earlier, the former director was charged and arrest warrant issued http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/148035

The government intends to extend the law that allows military dodgers to pay penalties and return to country without being arrested. It is yet to be submitted to Parliament http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/148020

Informed Citizens' Daniel Ionessyan is complaining that a criminal case is launched in Hrazdan against one of their members for illegal wiretapping, after the latter wiretapped then published a phone conversation where the Hrazdan mayor's candidate was asking an ally, a school director, for help to bring participants to his rally. Hrazdan's mayoral candidate's call would have certainly been illegal if the "busing" was on the election day, but there is no law that prohibits candidates to help their supporters to come to their rally, and similar incidents have happened in past where BHK was caught paying supporters to participate in pre-election flash mobs. Informed Citizens says the local authorities should have at least investigated whether the school director abused his powers. https://news.am/arm/news/480077.html

Ministry of Energy says they have begun negotiating gas prices with GazProm and the Russian Energy Ministry. The negotiations are around the price of the gas that enters Armenia, as well as the price that the ordinary consumers pay https://hetq.am/hy/article/97952

... Parliamentary committee that investigates gas prices says that on 2017, GazProm Armenia implemented internal reforms at their own expense to reduce the gas prices for consumers, and as a result, the prices were reduced for some. Says there are other ways to reduce the price further, and it's unclear why the efficiency of the gas delivery has gone down recently instead of going up, which allows the company to keep the costs higher as a compensation for the reported losses. The committee was unable to find the salaries of the top management because it's a commercial secret. https://news.am/arm/news/480051.html

... GazProm Armenia CEO says a price reduction will lead to instability in the gas delivery system. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHS15LfN0ho

... CEO says the company has reduced the gas prices by 20% for low income consumers on August of 2018, and as a result, they don't have an operational profit and even lost a bln AMD this year https://news.am/arm/news/479997.html

.... CEO says the Iranian gas should be 10% cheaper on the border so it can compete against the Russian gas ($150), because the latter has more "calories" and provides more energy from the same amount of burned gas https://news.am/arm/news/480039.html

Kim Kardashyan and Kanye West will visit Armenia to adopt a baby boy http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/148075

Armenia has prevented Ilham Aliyev from appearing at a CSTO military bloc summit in the form of a guest, invited by Kazakhstan and Belarus presidents. http://www.panarmenian.net/arm/news/262096/

Link to original report: https://www.reddit.com/r/armenia/comments/9vdbjp/anticorruption_nov82018/