PSRC Chairman states that his actions regarding Karapetyan`s ENA  don`t have political subtext

ArmInfo. The appointment of Romanos Petrosyan as the interim manager of Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA) CJSC is solely based on my authority and is not influenced by any political instructions, as stated by Chairman of  the Public Services Regulatory Commission (PSRC) Mesrop Mesropyan  during an interview with journalists on July 24.

According to him, the issue of appointing a temporary manager arose  after the authorized government body, specifically, the Minister of  Territorial Administration and Infrastructure of Armenia David  Khudatyan, reported shortcomings in management. These included  low  quality services, poor technical maintenance and ineffective  investments. He acknowledged that power outages can happen under any  management. Additionally, he emphasized that he does not believe his  decision is illegal, as he has the relevant authority, even if it was  made without the  entire board of the commission participating.

Touching upon the work of the Veolia Jur company in this regards,  where constant interruptions are also recorded, and citizens  constantly express dissatisfaction with the quality of water supply,  Mesropyan assured that the commission holds daily working meetings  with the management and takes necessary actions. However, he pointed  out that unlike ENA, Veolia Jur is not  the owner of the water  supply, but the state.

In addition, he decided to connect these issues with the rapid  economic growth, which, in his opinion, results in new problems.  Particularly, Mesropyan pointed out that  the increasing number of  apartment buildings in Yerevan is not being matched up with the  number of water pipelines  in the city, there are only six water  pipelines entering the city. When asked why the approaches  differ in  these two cases, he only reiterated that in the case of Veolia Jur,  all citizen complaint should be addressed by the state, as they are  not within  the  company.  "I am not saying that someone is working  flawlessly. It's just a different approach.  I have already explained  the difference between the issues faced by ENA and  Veolia Jur,"  Mesropyan concluded.

 It is worth noting that the former head of the PSRC, Garegin  Baghramyan, has already pointed out that the Yerevan City Hall, led  by Tigran Avinyan, issues permits for the construction of high-rise  buildings without coordinating with the companies responsible  for   providing these buildings with water, gas, and electricity. As a  result,  citizens often face problems. He further mentioned that  power outages were a result of  ENA being compelled to use the funds  allocated for network modernization to connect new subscribers.