Chairman of Public Services Regulatory Commission, of the Republic of Armenia, Robert Nazaryan, and CEO of “Electric Networks of Armenia”, Yevgeny Bibin, seem not to be “good friends.” The latter has sent an angry letter to Nazaryan with the meaning that if the electricity price would not rise for 17 drams, the way he demands, he – Bibin would turn off all our lights. Because, according to the CEO of ENA, all the numbers presented in his claim are more than substantiated. At yesterday’s committee session, during which it was decided to raise the price for electricity by around 7 drams, Nazaryan named Bibin’s this approach a “blackmail”.
As we, Armenians, have become rather skeptical, perhaps, an assumption is born in many of us that all of this is just a game. What Bibin wants was just 7 drams and he is very happy with today’s decision. He is just pretending to be upset to raise the rating of the Commission and our authorities, in general, allegedly, look, in what kind of “conflicts” this new tariff was born.
Certainly, these are assumptions and the government has a very easy method to dispel these doubts. The claim by ENA was made public for the first time. What prevented Nazaryan’s Commission to make previous claims and calculations public too based on which the prices of electricity have been increased several times. I have the impression that we have already paid several times by the “clauses”, by which the decision on the price rise was reasoned. In the case of making “new claims” public, the independent and non-politicized experts would give their conclusion on how this impression is true.
If the authorities are not in the “game” with ENA, then Armenia’s law enforcement agencies would audit where those investments were lost, which this company allegedly has done, to what extent the expenditures on leasing cars and office space of this company are well-founded, which are reflected in the last published claim. Or, for example, how it happened that the ENA’s trucks were repaired once in three days at the same private entrepreneur’s in Abovyan city, which, according to the document, costs 57 million drams per year for the company (economist Artak Manukyan’s data). What is this? Were they gilding these “Kamaz” trucks?
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The National Assembly, in its turn, should pass a law on more clear regulation of the energy issues, in general.
Once all these steps are taken, the doubts that an “agreed game” is going on between the ENA and the state officials would dispel.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
