Armenian opposition councilor alleges inflated city contracts involving officials' relatives

An opposition member of Yerevan’s City Council on Wednesday stated that the municipal authorities bought ticketing devices for city buses at nearly four times their market price from a company linked to the spouse of a senior government official’s deputy.

Mesrop Manukyan said the devices, installed on buses to collect coins, cost up to 38,000 drams on the market but were sold to the city for about 135,000 drams each. He claimed the supplier was the husband of a deputy to Arayik Harutyunyan, the chief of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s staff.

“They knew these devices would be obsolete within four months,” Manukyan told an anti-corruption workshop organized by the AntiCor platform, adding that he had publicly named those involved but saw no response from prosecutors or security agencies.

Manukyan also alleged corruption in other municipal projects, pointing to poor conditions at Victory Park despite 400 million drams in spending, problems with sewage at a renovated kindergarten and continued awards of public contracts to the same companies.