Head of SRC on  case of Gazprom Armenia: Opening a criminal case is  not a sentence

ArmInfo. In the course of scheduled inspections in the "Gazprom Armenia" company certain circumstances were discovered that require criminal legal assessment.  Chairman of the State Revenue Committee David Ananyan stated this on  November 15 after a government meeting.

According to Ananyan, planned inspections were carried out at  ''Gazprom Armenia''. In June of this year, as explained by the head  of the SRC, the department headed by him published a list of  taxpayers who are subject to inspection checks based on a risk  assessment for the period from July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019.   Gazprom-Armenia was also included in the list.

As the head of the SRC noted, during these inspections, the tax  authorities discovered certain information that was submitted to the  SRC investigation department, and the investigator made a decision to  open a criminal case. "But a criminal case is not a" verdict. "Within  the framework of the case, investigative actions must be carried out  that cannot be carried out within the framework of clarifying the  relationship with the budget," Ananyan explained. David Ananyan  refused to report about the amount of possible violations, citing the  confidential nature of the information and preliminary data. For the  same reason, he abstained from talking about the possible impact of  violations on the current gas tariff.

When asked about the possibility of revising the tariff for natural  gas based on the results of the criminal case, Ananyan pointed out  that this issue requires an in-depth analysis. "This is an equation  with several unknowns - it is necessary to establish whether there  were any losses at all," said Ananyan, acknowledging that the losses,  nevertheless, could have influenced pricing.