Despite numerous statements on corruption occurrences recently, president Sargsyan’s assignment to arrest top officials of any sphere for kickbacks and ineffective management of budget resources failed. In this regard Varuzhan Hoktanyan, Executive Director of Transparency International Anticorruption Center (TIAC) mentioned in his interview to Lragir.am that the members of Anticorruption Council would not naturally make a decision to arrest themselves, “i.e. for sure there won’t be any self-arrest.” The Armenian authorities have adopted the third anticorruption strategy and its implementation action plan, however no high ranking officials were punished hitherto for corruption. According to him the economic situation in the country might not be so bad, should corruption be reduced and eradicated.

As for corruption reduction and eradication Varuzhan Hoktanyan observed two varieties of public attitude. Civil society must consistently push and make the authorities fight against corruption based on “act on your commitment if you made it ” principle. Another form of public attitude is the passive one, when the people take it for granted that the situation continued, they do not take anticorruption council seriously and do nothing to improve the situation.

Varuzhan Hoktanyan also noticed that international organizations, in particular the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and European Union institutions show great interest in fight against corruption in Armenia. It is also known that USAID is ready to provide the bulk of USD 750,000 to combat corruption.

Hoktanyan said, “I consider it a grave signal: if there is no serious fight against corruption, assistance provided for anticorruption and for other areas might be stopped. It is not excluded that this is becoming a litmus test, followed by more serious inferences. International organizations do not like when the resources provided for a certain aim are squandered. Fighing corruption is significant. Would the resources be effectively used or squandered? Should similar organizations pay attention to this issue, it might be a precautious signal.”

See the article in Lragir.am in Armenian.