“According to the Corruption Perception Index, the overall situation in Armenia is the state of stagnation,” such opinion was expressed by Executive Director of “Transparency International” NGO Varuzhan Hoktanyan, during the meeting with the journalists at the “Nyut” press club, referring to the corruption in Armenia. According to him, there is no serious fight against corruption in Armenia other than “want the wolves to be fed and the sheep to be safe” approach functions. According to him, the situation in Armenia is not getting worse, nor improving, it steadily remains at a level that is typical of countries with high levels of corruption. Back to the corruption indexes in Armenia, Mr. Hoktanyan said, “The index of Armenia in 36 in the scale of 0-100. In case of below 50, corruption becomes a serious problem in this country.” According to Varuzhan Hoktanyan, the situation in Armenia is much worse than in Georgia and Turkey, but we are in a better shape than Azerbaijan and Iran. Armenia is also ahead to the EaEU member countries by its index. There are such corruption phenomena in Armenia as the invasion of a state, and especially in the event that Armenia ranks the 17 among the 22 former communist countries. There is also a budget expenditure, sponsorship, waste of budgetary resources and abuse of power in Armenia.
To the question of Aravot.am that the government of Armenia with its decree dated February 19 to set up an Anti-Corruption Council, and judging from its staff, whether we can say that the activities of this Council will be effective. For example, the Council staff includes Prime Minister of Armenia Hovik Abrahamyan, who has repeatedly written about the relatives’ businesses, or the Finance Minister Gagik Khachatryan, whose business circles have long crossed the border of Armenia, or Minister of Justice, while according to indexes of various surveys, the very justice system is one of the stimulus of this main evil, Mr. Hoktanyan replied, “The problem is more complex in the sense that there is a problem of to what extent the Council will be able to combat corruption and how effectively it will work, even if other people are enrolled there. This is not a decision-making body, but a consultative, and it should give advice to the government. In my opinion, given the current political situation and the presence of the some people in the Council, the opposition possibility would boycott.”
Based on the experience of combating corruption by other countries that have this level of corruption, Mr. Hoktanyan said, “One of the options for corruption reduction is the change of power and not necessarily when we compare with other countries, which two color revolutions were carried out. Change of power in Ukraine had the opposite effect. If there is a change of power, then there should be a political will, moreover, an expression of the will by the top political leadership, whose textbook example is Singapore.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
