Varuzhan Hoktanyan, Executive Director of Transparency International Anticorruption Center (TIAC) does not take Government-civil society anticorruption working platform seriously. The platform was established on September 23 by the Armenian Ministry of Justice, the Freedom of Information Center in Armenia and the Armenian Young Lawyers Association and co-funded by the EU and the OSCE Office in Yerevan. In his comments to Aravot.am why he was skeptical about the platform and was against it Hoktanyan said that he could not see that real anticorruption policy was pursued in the country, that the government and the authorities were indeed proactive and civil society was involved in decision making process.

According to Hoktanyan a similar group – anti-corruption monitoring committee was established in 2004. It was also a platform. There was a separate anticorruption council comprised of representatives of state institutions and there was also monitoring committee. Then TIAC entered the monitoring committee with enthusiasm but it resigned in 2007 February since the committee filed to make any serious change. The monitoring committee worked but there were no satisfactory results, moreover even meetings were not held the last year.

Since 2003 the state of corruption in Armenia is stagnated. There is no progress. The main reason why TIAC was reluctant to join the platform was that they would refrain from recurrence of the previous sad experience.

Addressing the strategy presented by civil society- anticorruption working platform, Hoktanyan said that it suggested limited solution in fighting corruption. Should there be real political will and not just a well drafted document administrative, the so-called petty corruption might be eradicated in the spheres fixed in strategy.