Ani Samsonyan to Nikol Pashinyan: New monopolies are being formed in  Armenia in the field of public procurement

ArmInfo. Member of the National Assembly of Armenia from the Bright Armenia faction Ani Samsonyan sent an open letter to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. In the letter, she, in particular, pointed to numerous violations in the field of  organizing state events.

The matter, in particular, concerns the provision of orders for the organization of various state activities to one particular company, which, however, was chosen not by a  transparent and fair tender, but by unknown criteria.  Moreover, the  contract data were not sent to the armeps system and were not  recorded in the gnumner.am system, as required by law.

This practice, according to the lawmaker, was used in the  organization of New Year's celebrations, holidays for the 2800th  anniversary of  Yerevan. In this process, as the MP stressed, as a  rule, preference was given to one company, Factory Production",  established in 2017. It was entrusted with the organization of the  holiday "Erebuni-Yerevan", as well as the New Year holidays.  Moreover, the contracts were concluded without a competition. For  organizing only these two events, the state paid 54 million drams to  this company.

Samsonyan noted that Factory Production also received the opportunity  to hold events within the framework of the Francophonie Summit and  the Forum Against the Crime of Genocide. Again, the contract was  concluded without a tender on the basis of the purchase from one  person. The MP points out that as a justification of the decision,   the argument was made that <products and services of the company are  exceptional>. The organization received 76 million 135 thousand drams  from the state budget for organizing a gala concert on the Republic  Square dedicated to the Francophonie summit, and 54 million 790  thousand drams were transferred to it within the framework of the  Global Forum "Against the Crime of Genocide", the MP said. It is  noteworthy that the large part of funds provided by the state for  organizing events on Citizen's Day also were paid to this company (25  million drams). In this context, the lawmaker stated that there was a  monopoly in the public procurement sphere, and the requirements of  the law are violated.  "That is, the authorities make purchases from  one company, which leads to the formation of a monopoly and an  anti-competitive environment," she said. Samsonyan asks the prime  minister to answer the following questions: <Why did one particular  company deal with all these activities? Why the preference is given  to that particular company?