“Hetq” wrote:
Sergey Bagratyan, a member of the National Assembly “Civil Agreement” faction, announced yesterday that the company owned by his wife did not carry out illegal sand mining. According to the deputy, they rented land in Ranchpar village in order to establish a garden, however, seeing the sand, they decided to clean the land from sand, and they should invest the funds received from the sold sand in the plan to establish a garden. According to his definition, transporting waste sand is not mining, moreover, they could extract material from the subsoil up to 2 meters deep and transport it, which is legal. These claims could be true if there were not a number of facts refuting them.
In the article published on November 15, we presented details of how the company of the MP’s wife carries out illegal sand mining in Ranchpar village of Ararat Marz.
Before the publication of the article, we contacted Sergey Bagratyan for clarification. Having learned that the deputy is participating in a conference in Italy, we waited for him to return to Armenia and answer our questions. A few days later, we met at the National Assembly, but we did not receive an explanation for the publication. After an informal conversation, he promised that the documents related to sand mining would be sent and suggested that we talk to the management of the company about the issues of interest to us. We did not receive the promised documents before the article was published, so we published the article. We would not have written these details if Sergey Bagratyan had kept the promise made during the non-disclosure meeting to send the documents.
After the publication of the article, Sergey Bagratyan provided us with 3 documents, which refer to the correspondence between the director of Ararak LLC owned by his wife, the Republic Geological Fund of the Ministry of Territorial Management and Infrastructure, and the Ministry of Environment. In December 2022, the director of Bagratyan’s wife’s LLC appealed to the Minister of Environment, asking to appoint an expert to obtain a license for the use of hazardous waste. In April 2023, Deputy Minister of Education Tigran Gabrielyan informed the director of LLC in writing that the waste they want to transport is not included in the “hazardous waste list”. In other words, the sand is not considered a hazardous waste, which they had to get permission to transport. The third letter provided to us by the deputy is a letter from the director of the “Republic Geological Fund” SNOC, in which the director of the LLC was informed in June 2023 that there is no subsoil use right in that area of Ranchpar village, and the area is a state property for mineral deposits. it is not counted as a mine in the cadastre. This letter was also received when sand was extracted from the area for several months.
Combining the facts stated above, the statements of Sergey Bagratyan and the facts of sand mining that we have recorded, we conclude that they tried to cover up the illegal sand mining with correspondence.
MP’s wife LLC assessed its sand mining activity as “waste transportation”, wrote letters about it, and the RA Law “On Waste” extends to the use of waste generated during production and consumption. According to the law, such waste is considered to be the remains of raw materials, materials, products, other products or products generated during production or consumption, as well as products (products) that have lost their original consumer properties.
In addition, Sergey Bagratyan stated that materials can be extracted and disposed of for personal needs up to 2 meters from the subsoil. Article 48 of the “Subsoil” Code stipulates: “Legal persons and citizens, without the formation of the right to use the subsoil, may extract non-metallic minerals that are not recorded in the state balance sheet in order to satisfy their own economic and domestic needs, without the goal of making a profit within the boundaries of their own plots of land. – up to 2 meters deep. The code clearly defined that it should not be for profit, while Sergey Bagratyan stated that they sold the sand and paid taxes. In other words, they also made a profit.
After all this, it is unnecessary to even discuss the question of what intensive garden should have been established on the sand mine, what trees should have been planted and grown.
By the way, after our publication about illegal sand mining, Sergey Bagratyan’s wife, Naira Hakobyan, transferred her 100% share in Ararak LLC to another person, Vrezh Yeghoyan, who is one of Sergey Bagratyan’s business partners.