Category: 2018

The Ministry of Health, referring to the issue of water turning green or “blooming” due to the spread of blue-green algae in some coastal areas of Lake Sevan, urges citizens to refrain from swimming in such places.

As reported by the RA Ministry of Health, cyanobacter or blue-green algae are found all over the world, especially in non-flowing, nutrient-rich waters. Some of these species produce poisons (toxins) that have a negative impact on the health of animals and people, and people can be exposed to them by drinking, swimming in, or accidentally swallowing the “blooming” water.

Swimming in such water may cause the following symptoms: asthma, eye irritation, rash, particularly around the mouth and nose, skin irritation, allergic reaction. If you swallow water carelessly, you may experience stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, sore throat, headache, muscle and joint pain, lumps in the mouth, liver problems.

In order to avoid such health problems, the Ministry of Health urges:

1. do not swim in green or “flowery” water,
2. prohibit children from swimming in unauthorized areas,
3. In case of the above-mentioned symptoms, consult a doctor immediately.

RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attended the graduation ceremony of the graduates of the 2017-2018 academic year at the Ministry of Defense.

The Prime Minister congratulated all the graduates on the occasion of graduating from educational institutions, receiving the rank of officer, and personally handed over the graduation documents to a group of graduates.

Addressing the audience, Nikol Pashinyan, in particular, noted: “What does it mean to be an officer of the Armenian armed forces, the Armenian army? it means dedicating one’s life to the cause of defense and security of the motherland, it means dedicating one’s life to the cause of peaceful life, restful sleep, peaceful living of compatriots. But the representatives of the armed forces, the officers, by ensuring the quiet life of others, they, in fact, sacrifice the quiet life of their mothers, their wives, and their relatives. They very often sacrifice the time they should have spent with their families, children, and friends for the sake of protecting the homeland. And so, as a result of all this, the question arises: what makes a person to assume these honorable shoulders, this high rank? I want to believe that the sense of mission, awareness of mission leads each of you to the rank and service of an officer. Tomorrow the Armenian army will no longer be the same as it was yesterday, because tomorrow the Armenian army will have many of you, the lieutenants, as serving officers, commanders, while yesterday the Armenian army did not have you as such, in that capacity. Also, tomorrow the senior officers will receive new appointments, with a higher status, while yesterday the situation in the army was completely different.

And so, I want, I hope, I am sure that each of you realizes that with your presence, your activity, your new status, you will change something in the army, and it is very important that each of you, with this awareness of the mission, clearly understands and realizes what is changing in the army and in what direction. I hope and believe that each of you goes to the new assignment with the awareness that the future of the Armenian army and the defense of the homeland depends on him, on that one officer, on that one person. Yes, each of you can change a lot within your reach, within your competence, and I hope that each of you strives for perfect service in your service and believes that you can create perfect service not only for yourself but also for others.

To be a commander is to be responsible to others and to be responsible for others, to be a commander is to have the will and determination to issue orders to die at the most important moment and this is a very heavy responsibility and this is a very powerful responsibility and this responsibility can only be borne by people with a really strong, unbreakable will. And I see in your eyes that you have the will not only to serve, but also to win, to bring victory to our people, our state, our homeland. I see in your eyes our future victories, I see in your attitude our future victories and therefore you I wish you a glorious service in the armed forces of Armenia, in the Armenian army, because our goal is one, our future is one, our present day is one. The Armenian people won the war, the Armenian people won in the construction of statehood, and the Armenian people won in establishing their power in their country, and no one from outside or inside can and will not dare to take that victory away from the hands of the people. And the number one, most important defenders of that victory are you.

And so, long live the Republic of Armenia, long live the Armenian army, long live the armed forces of Armenia and glorious Armenian soldiers and officers.”

On July 16, 2018, the 1st Department of the Investigation Department of the RA SRC received the results of the study of the construction process of the Dilijan Training Center of the RA Ministry of Finance, carried out in the State Interest Protection Department of the RA Prosecutor General’s Office, regarding the abuses and embezzlements committed during the process.

As reported by the press service of the SRC, during the preparation of the materials, factual data was obtained that the competent officials of the RA Ministry of Finance and the State Revenue Committee of the RA RA, using their official positions against the interests of the service, based on selfish, other personal interests and group interests, violating the requirements of the current legislation, without carrying out the process defined by law for the purchase, to conclude a contract, set a preliminary price, prepare a volume sheet-estimate and submit justifications through “Sahakyanshin” CJSC engaged in construction activities without organized and carried out the construction works of the Dilijan educational center in the form of documentation, for which neither copyright nor technical quality control was actually carried out.

Instead, during the years 2013-2015, under the condition that the construction works were actually completed, and in some cases a part of them had been completed, 6 purchase contracts were signed with the “Sahakyanshin” CJSC company for the partial implementation of the reconstruction works, with a total value of 2 billion 356 million 455 thousand AMD, after which only days after that, handover-acceptance protocols and execution acts certifying the fact of the construction works were drawn up. in conditions where it is practically impossible to start and finish construction works of this type and volume within one or more days.

During the preparation of the materials, factual data was also obtained regarding the apparent existence of a number of other criminal acts.

On July 24, 2018, a criminal case was initiated in the investigation department of the SRC under Article 308, Part 1, Article 314, Part 1, Article 179, Part 2, Clauses 1 and 3 of the RA Criminal Code.

The official message does not mention the names of the officials involved in the case. But it is known that the construction of the Dilijan educational center was carried out on the initiative of Gagik Khachatryan, the chairman of the SRC and Minister of Finance.

To remind, on December 23, 2008, the government, led by Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan, made a decision to create a state non-commercial organization “Educational Center” within the SRC.

Abuses in Vardenis boarding school. more than 3 million drams were caused to the state
In 2010, by the decision of the government, the “Dilijan creative house” of the Union of Cinematographers with an adjacent 3.5 ha plot was provided to SNOC for 505 million drams, and in 2011 by another decision of the RA government on December 29, another 22,505 ha of land from the territory of the Dilijan National Park was added to that area.

In 2012, 1 billion drams were allocated to SRC from the reserve fund of the RA government for the implementation of the design works of the Dilijan educational center. A year later, in 2013, the SRC decided to make changes to the 1 billion dram project and signed a new contract with “ZAART” architectural studio for the changes, paying the latter 44.9 million drams.

The actual construction of the center started already in 2011. For the first stage, the SRC paid 334,307,822 drams to “Spitak Tnak” LLC, and the technical supervision of the completed construction was entrusted to “Husali Kamar” LLC for 3.3 million drams.

In 2012, SRC ordered construction works to 4 construction organizations, paying them a total of 1.3 billion drams.

The biggest amount went to “Sahakyanshin” LLC: 1 billion 136 million drams, “Husali Kamar” received 21 million drams, “White House” received 84.2 million drams. In 2012, another 84 million drams were also paid to “ZAART” architectural studio for artistic and constructive solutions of some buildings of the center.

The PEC of 2014 decides to further expand the area of ​​the educational center by purchasing the plot of land located at 5/1 of Simple Lake St. in Dilijan for 32.5 million drams. In the same year, “Sahakyanshin” LLC received 626.7 million drams from the state budget, “Husali Kamar” received 40 million drams, and “ZAART” architectural studio received 22 million drams for construction works.

In 2015, “Sahakyanshin” LLC received 4.9 billion drams, “Husali Kamar” – 5.5 million, and “ZAART” architectural studio – 4.5 billion drams. And since the construction of the expensive center was already nearing completion, in 2015 curtains, furniture, televisions worth millions of drams were purchased from various companies with state funds for the already constructed buildings.

In 2016, the interior finishing works continued. Already this year, “Sahakyanshin” LLC received 1.8 billion drams, “ZAART” architectural studio – 9.5 million, “Husali Kamar” – 9.4 million drams.

Thus, according to the calculations of the purchases made by one person and the published decisions of the government, about 26 billion drams have been spent from the state budget on the training center of Dilijan, owned by the SRC, from the day of its creation until now.

Tomorrow I am leaving for St. Petersburg to participate in the session of the EAEU intergovernmental council (prime ministers’ format). Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said this on his official Facebook page.

On July 26 and 27, the regular session of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council will be held in St. Petersburg, which will be chaired by the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation. Dmitry Medvedev։

He reminded that due to the status acquired in RA after the constitutional changes, the Prime Minister of Armenia is involved in the EAEU High Economic Council in the format of heads of states, and this issue is also resolved de jure, that is, the Prime Minister will continue to represent Armenia here.

At the same time, he explained why he participates in the work of the EAEU intergovernmental council.

“The legal regulations of the EAEU intergovernmental council’s work have not yet been aligned with the new text of the RA Constitution, and if I did not participate in the session of the Council of Prime Ministers, decisions could not be made and the format would be paralyzed,” he noted, adding that during the days of the Velvet Revolution, he stated that paralyzing the EAEU “is not our goal.”

“Since I announced back in the days of the Velvet Revolution that it is not our goal to paralyze the EAEU, on the contrary, we must do everything to make our country’s membership in that organization more effective, I made a decision to go to St. Petersburg,” the Prime Minister said.

In Saint-Petersburg, the heads of governments of the member states of the Eurasian Economic Union will discuss the issues of digital development of EAEU states, cooperation in the fields of energy and transport, industrial cooperation and customs cooperation, as well as improving the legal and normative base of the EAEU.

Let’s remind that on July 23, RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putina telephone conversation took place between them, during which the parties discussed issues related to EAEU and Armenian-Russian cooperation.

As a result of the large-scale investigative actions taken in the criminal case under investigation in the main department of the RA Investigative Committee, abuses were revealed during the funeral rites and funeral services, and their mechanism was clarified.

According to the preliminary investigation, the management of “REQUIEM” SP company, which provides funeral rites and funeral services, included false data regarding profit, turnover, income in the calculations submitted to the tax inspectorate during 2014-2016, apparently avoiding the full fulfillment of tax obligations.

Thus, according to the obtained factual data, the director of the company, in order to avoid the payment of taxes, violating the requirements of Article 4, Part 3 of the RA Law “On Turnover Tax”, Article 7 of the same law and Article 6, Part 2 of the RA Law “On the Specifics of Accounting and Payment of Indirect Taxes between RA and EAEU Member States”, 2014-2016. during the period, the territorial tax inspectorate presented obviously false data regarding the company’s activities.

It is:

– 2015-2016 for the reporting periods, the tax inspectorate submitted only turnover tax calculations, while for the same period, according to the established procedure, it should have also submitted calculations for profit tax and value added tax.
– 2014 The sales tax calculation for the 4th quarter understated the company’s sales tax turnover. 
– 2016 In March, in the import tax declaration submitted to the tax inspectorate for goods imported from the EEU member state, the taxable base of value added tax was not specified, and the amount of value added tax payable for imported goods was not calculated and paid.

At the same time, in violation of the requirements of the Law of the Republic of Armenia “On Income Tax” and the order “Recording the fact of not formalizing the hiring of an employee in writing in the manner prescribed by the legislation of the Republic of Armenia” adopted by the Government of the Republic of Armenia on 25.07.2013 No. incomes paid and amounts of tax withheld from those incomes.

According to the conclusion of the forensic accounting examination, the damage caused to the state was estimated at AMD 15,267,217, including penalties and fines.

With the combination of the obtained sufficient evidence, the founder-director of the SP company was charged under the 1st and 2nd points of Article 205, Part 1 of the RA Criminal Code. During the preliminary investigation, the damage caused to the state was partially recovered in the amount of 6.7 million drams, and the rest will be paid in accordance with the schedule to be concluded with the tax authority.

The investigation in the criminal case has been completed.