According to the data of Transparency International, a global anticorruption organization, Armenia’s corruption perception index of this year is 34. This index of the Republic of Armenia is higher than that of Azerbaijan, but Armenia hasn’t improved its positions, anyway. www.aravot.am inquired of experts where the underlying causes for this situation were.
Vardan Bostanjyan, a former MP and a member of the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP), said: “The corruption in our country is caused by irregularity, lack of responsibility, indifferent approach and many things related to governance. In any event, not only should a country keep an eye on those issues as much as possible, but also employ action mechanisms while dealing with those to rule out or reduce corruption. If that approach is not there, naturally, being an uncontrollable phenomenon, corruption becomes the work style of the whole society from school to the highest levels of government.”
Giving the example of Georgia, Mr. Bostanjyan noted: “Corruption was more widespread in Georgia than in the Republic of Armenia. However, at a certain moment, those tasks were undertaken quite consistently, and everyone realized that they would be inevitably punished for corruption. As a result, corruption was tangibly reduced. The political will is in employing the means of responsibility. Guess, a man or an official, engaging in activities against our national interests, is just fired, and after a period of relative peace, he is appointed to a higher office, why should he give up on corruption?”
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Concluding the conversation, Mr. Bostanjyan stated: “They struggle in vain. There is only one way of struggle. Use it, since you know quite well which way it is. If they don’t use it, they are the very corruptionists.”
Vahagn Khachatryan, a member of the Armenian National Congress (ANC), in his turn, noted: “There is no transparency in governance, in customs and tax services and other fields, and, generally, the system of governance is completely based on corruption.”
In order to avoid future “games” of the government of the Republic of Armenia, Mr. Khachatryan stressed that the method of study had changed and went into detail: “Let us know this, since the government can play its games again – we were in 129th place in the 2011 report and now we are in 105th or 113th place. Those are not comparable.”
As for comparison with Georgia, V. Khachatryan said: “It is undoubtedly a result of political will. If the ruling party and the head of government want to eliminate corruption, they can do it easily, since respective laws and actions will let them do that. That is Georgia’s advantage over us. And where should that will come from in our country… independence of the legal system, which we don’t have at all, is also important here.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
