Azernews.Az

By Kamila Aliyeva

Corruption cases in the government are no more surprises for Armenian people.

Most recently, local media revealed that Armenia’s parliament became the main hotbed of this “evil”. Senior officials working in the parliament were accused of large-scale corruption.

Zhamanak newspaper reported that several high-ranking officials of the Parliament were recently dismissed on charges of misusing the finances of the Parliament.

Deputy Chief of Staff - Head of Administration Erik Minasyan, Deputy Chief of the department of finance and accounting Ruzanna Atoyan and chief accountant Suzanne Ayvazyan were dismissed.

The investigation revealed that huge funds were illegally appropriated by them.

The newly-elected MPs, who won the last parliamentary elections in Armenia, asked to relevant authorities to repair their rooms. However, a response from the accounting department surprised the MPs. They were told that there is not enough money in the budget of the Parliament and that the deputies' rooms will not be repaired.

The newspaper reported that former Speaker of Parliament Galust Sahakyan was aware of the situation and “bad habit” of high-ranking officials of the Parliament.

Armenia has the Anti-Corruption Council, that was set up during former Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan’s term in office and later transferred to the incumbent Premier, Karen Karapetyan.

However, the establishment of the Council caused wide public outcry, because it included such high-ranking officials, who, in the opinion of social and political circles, were not far from that process themselves and the number of medial publications and their property declarations testified to that. Therefore, the fight against corruption in Armenia is ‘artificial’.

The 2015 report of the Transparency International Anti-corruption Center showed that Armenia is one of the most corrupt countries of the world.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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