CC MP Vahagn Aleksanyan, speaking on Public Television about the video “Rich Revolutionaries” published by Aravot.am announced. “In Aravot’s video, the journalist, very respected and loved by me, who personally bought an apartment in “Yeraz” district with a mortgage, tells, under alarming music, how deputies like him bought an apartment in “Yeraz” district with a mortgage.” The deputy is right; I bought an apartment in that district. But he needs to remember a few subtleties.
Having worked as a journalist for 20 years, I purchased a 55.75 square meter apartment for 40,000 dollars with a unique program for journalists, with a repayment period of 240 months, that is, 20 years. In other words, when I formulated the loan, I committed to repaying it in 2039. Later, I transferred the loan to “Armeconombank,” for which I am incredibly grateful for offering me the most convenient repayment conditions. The following important circumstance: I am not a state official and do not feed from the budget. And the properties and achievements of deputies and ministers are under the public’s magnifying glass because they use public funds. I understand it is inconvenient and unpleasant when journalists record and film what this or that minister or deputy does, what account he closes in the facility, what property he buys, and what gifts he receives, but that’s the price of being a public official.
You are accountable to the public for every penny of the budget. As you can see, not being a declaring, I published the terms of my property acquisition; everything is clear and transparent for me, and my income is open to the state. I do not receive money in an envelope; my salary is visible to you; I did not and now do not forge. I do not place orders. So I expect at least the same accountability from you as a citizen of the Republic of Armenia.
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Is it good that our citizens buy apartments in their homeland? It’s good; I don’t see anything reprehensible there. But the video was about government ministers, MPs who declared, for example, an income of 41,600 drams, and came to power with 55,000 drams in their pockets, in this short time, in a few years, managed to acquire several real estates. I have recorded the fact; I leave the consequences to you.
Vahagn Aleksanyan also says on Public TV. “They asked another member of parliament, and they said you received land as a gift; she wrote that my husband’s grandmother and grandfather bought land when they came to Armenia in the 1940s-50s, and they gave it to my husband, that we shared an apartment to be able to buy, the video does not include the episode of belonging to the family of someone you don’t know from 1950. There’s no question about that.” We are talking about CP deputy Hripsime Grigoryan. Mr. Aleksanyan, it’s not like that; watch the video again; the deputy’s answer is posted fully and without distortion. The officials to whom we have requested information or have provided us with clarifications these days regarding the property they acquired, and it is not in the video, we will refer to them on Aravot.am one by one, in a row, in order.
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
