2024-02-15 04:33:23
Deputy Minister of Economy Arman Khojoyan referred to the criminal case initiated by corruption abuses discovered in the ministry, noting that he is not aware of what tender process it is related to.
Khojoyan said that the law enforcement officers stayed in the ministry for about 2 hours.
Regarding possible corruption phenomena in the ministry, Khojoyan said. “In the field of agriculture, some issues were raised by the head of the department in 2022 and they were transferred to the relevant structures. Since then, we have seen a certain trend of increasing the number of these questions, they were continuously presented to the law enforcement agencies, which were followed by various types of actions. As a result of these actions, both farmers, who, according to our observation, may have submitted false documents, and employees were questioned. I think the question was considered in that context. As far as I know, there is a proceeding in the investigative committee within the framework of the intensive gardens program.
According to the deputy minister, when farmers submit applications for the intensive garden program, the monitoring group conducts a survey to find that there is no garden at the moment, and the person should start implementing actions. “Based on that document, we sign a contract. They are not coordinated by one person, they are specifically separated so that one can control the other. After establishing a garden, when it comes to reimbursement of expenses, people submit their documents. They present invoices, contracts, documents certifying various types of expenses. Monitoring examines whether the orchard is present, whether the number of trees, adherence, drip irrigation technologies are adequate. After that it just gives a conclusion. The Program Implementation Department simply compares these costs to be identical to those set by the government decision.
We have noticed that some people, beneficiaries falsify the documents we have transferred to the law enforcement agencies and submit inflated expenses to the ministry. We believe that law enforcement will conduct a proper investigation and that the people who are guilty will be brought to justice.”