The Chronicle of Everyday Corruption
The ANIF Foundation and its subsidiaries have inflicted a staggering 12 billion drams of damage on the state.
The spending by these funds went unchecked, shielded by the patronage of the former Deputy Prime Minister, now the Mayor of Yerevan.
A vivid example of this type of unsupervised spending is the story of a particular purchase.
At the beginning of 2023, when it became apparent that the salaries didn’t match the unclear qualifications or the achievements, ANIF made a strategic move and announced a tender for a “study of salaries at similar funds abroad.” Clearly, this was an attempt to justify their own hefty salaries. It’s peculiar that they didn’t commission this study before awarding themselves multi-million-dram salaries but only did so when the public got irritated.
In the tender, predictably, there was JUST ONE participant, who won with a bid of 12 million drams.
Instead of curbing their appetites, the fund spent another 12 million on a dubious justification of their salaries. Naturally, the report from the study is unavailable.
This is how taxpayer money is being spent, or rather, brazenly stolen. What used to be crude corruption has now dressed up in finery.
And they say things have changed.
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Levon Khalatyan
