There was a rather popular facebook post in the internet’s Armenia-verse which a friend asked my feedback on given my critical views of the ruling party. The post discussed the most important achievements of the new Armenian government over the past two years.
The most noteworthy items and projects included the launch of a new thermal power plant in Yerevan, an Engineering City in Jrvezh, A large tech complex within Yerevan, a Tumo tech park, a large solar power plant, and more.
At first glance the contents of the list were quite impressive. However upon closer inspection, I noticed something rather important which I thought was worthy of sharing:
Almost the entirety of the list was composed of the achievements of the previous governments, and nearly all of the remaining items were false statements that echoed claims made by senior members of the current government.
Let’s take a look:
Jrvezh Engineering City
First introduced in 2016, and officially announced in June 2017 by the Ministry of Economy, the first offices were in place by the fall of that same year.
Tumo Tech Park
The Tumo Tech Park was one of several exciting initiatives that Tumo announced on February, 20th, 2018.
Yerevan Thermal Power Plant
The agreement for the construction of the Yerevan Thermal Power Plant was finalized in the first quarter of 2017, with the project launching in the first quarter of 2018. The agreement was abruptly and unilaterally cancelled by the new government upon the change in power, with the stated goal of renegotiating better terms that the government claimed would result in $6.4 million dollars in savings per year for Armenia. These actions surely will not go unnoticed among European investors, considering Renco is the most prominent investor Armenia has had from the European Union.
New Transportation System
The author mentions that a new transportation system has been introduced in the holy city of Vagharshapat [Echmiadzin]. What the author doesn’t mention is that the chaotic and archaic transportation systems of both Yerevan and the country as a whole were supposed to be completely replaced starting in 2018.
The number of routes in Yerevan were supposed to be reduced from 115 disorganized and privately owned routes, to 42 centrally planned and interconnected, professionally designed routes, planned by the British management consulting company WYG. The 2039 mixed bag of various minibuses and buses were supposed to be replaced with 939 buses, ending the era of marshrutkas.
Armenia was expected to go from having the worst rated public transportation system in the former Soviet Union to having one of its most impressive.
Naturally, for that to have occurred, the government would have had to increase bus fares, which have not been increased in over twenty years, when GDP per capita was less than one tenth of what it is today.
Unfortunately, the new authorities, who had built a large part of their reputation on the reckless protests of 2013 against increased bus fares, could not carry out an action they had once condemned, no matter how necessary and beneficial it may have been.
So Vagharshapat might very well have implemented a new transportation system that seems to not have been significant enough to have received widespread coverage. However, that was supposed to be only one small part of a much larger and more revolutionary upgrade to the entire national transportation system that never came to pass.
Solar Power Plants
On March 24th of 2017 the Armenian government announced a $100 million dollar investment from the UAE for a solar power plant in Armenia. This was followed by a March 30th of 2017 announcement of another investment from the UAE, this time for a $150 million dollar wind farm. Both were preceded by Serzh’s Sargsyan’s visit to the UAE.
On December 5th of 2017 it was reported that Arpi Solar had been awarded the tender and would soon start the construction of a 55MW solar power plant in Masrik- part of six solar power plants expected to have a capacity of 110MW.
New Factories
The author mentions three main projects: A diamond factory in Abovyan employing 700 individuals. An Italian ceramics factory in Arinj employing 500 individuals. And Alex Textile, employing 1000 individuals.
It all sounds very impressive. One important omission by the author however is that the first two are initiatives of Gagik Tsarukyan, while the latter is by Samvel Aleksanyan, and all of them were planned and executed long before the government change, and succeeded in spite of the members of the current government who as opposition figures did their very best to vilify those individuals and to rattle investor confidence in Armenia.
The most notable action the current government can take credit for regarding investors is having introduced a reign of economic terror towards Gagik Tsarukyan, who just by happenstance, controls the largest opposition faction in parliament, having enough deputies to halt the current unconstitutional assault on the Constitutional Court, and to even call a vote of no confidence, if he chooses to do so.
In order to eliminate the only semblance of an institutional opposition to his rule, Nikol Pashinyan and his party have engaged in full fledged political repression in the form of using state institutions to assault the business interests of Tsarukyan, as to keep him in line. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the government’s shutting down of the $100 million dollar five star Kempinski hotel at the very center of the capital, leaving it as an embarrassing eyesore for over a year. Having to chose between his business interests and his political ambitions- not to mention his responsibilities as an opposition leader- Gagik Tsarukyan has once again chosen the former.
To further drive this point home, I find it necessary to state that the director of Gagik Tsarukyan’s Multi Group was arrested on the day of this article’s publishing. The number of ordinary citizens that must lose their jobs in order for Pashinyan to consolidate power does not seem to be of significance to the ruling party.
The four other smaller factories mentioned by the author can be described in a similar manner as their three larger counterparts. The largest of the four is the Maralik Cotton-Textile Factory employing 150 individuals- owned by Vartan Sirmakesh, likely the most significant Diasporan investor from the West in post-independence Armenia.
The same Vartan Sirmakesh who upon the change in government stated that his page was under attack by government supporters who disapproved of a post he had made honoring Serzh Sargsyan. He stated that if his page was taken down, it should be known that for him Serzh Sargsyan remains a true statesman. And that instead of such meaningless steps, the government should have found a better Yerevan mayoral candidate than an actor. A mere few minutes later, his Facebook page was taken down.
Ryanair and Wizz Air
Another achievement mentioned by the author is another favorite of those at the very top of the current administration: the introduction of Ryanair into Armenia. Though famed Israeli-Russian blogger Alexander Lapshin had a different take on the “achievement”, claiming that Ryanair made the same offer to Serzh Sargsyan, but he declined as the offer did not make economic sense.
“The whole internet is discussing what a wonderful girl Tatevik Revazyan, the head of the Armenian Civil Aviation Committee, must be to be able to ‘persuade’ Ryanair to come to Armenia. What nonsense! What does that girl have to do with it? Friends, the question is not Tatevik Revazyan’s ability to come to terms with airlines. The issue was for the state to abolish all airport charges for the airline so that they would agree to launch flights to Armenia”
The Armenian government was determined to not allow such statements to damped its victory lap regarding the one achievement that was undeniably its own, and not that of their predecessors. In fact, the government seemed so invested in its achievement, that it refused to cancel Ryanair flights from Italy, even after it had become clear that Italy had become a new epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus would eventually arrive and spread in Armenia, largely through two individuals flying on Ryanair from Milan. Flights from Italy were finally discontinued by Ryanair itself on March 13th.
However, a mere few weeks later, all reasonable disagreement regarding the Civil Aviation Committee seemed to be over with the shocking news that two Armenian airline companies were barred by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) from flying to Europe. This coming three months after in the midst of its Ryanair publicity campaign, the Armenian Civil Aviation Committee was warned that it was dangerously close to that possibility. The news is particularly damning when one considers that in 2015, the same ICAO gave Armenia a relatively high score of 80 out of 100.
When confronted with the question of how such a thing could have been allowed to occur, the head of the Civil Aviation Committee Tatevik Reyvazian stated: “when I asked my staff if there were any issues, they would not be truthful with me.”
Tax Collection and Economic Data
Regarding the economic and revenue data that the author mentioned, I will ask the reader to please see the articles below. Those are highly complex matters requiring very long and detailed explanations, which I have provided in those articles.
Everything Else of Significance
- No, 350 km of road were not constructed. Not in 2019, and not in the year before, nor ever. The author is once again simply restating another false favorite statement of the ruling party. It is possible that 350 km of road were repaired (depending on how liberal one chooses to be with the word repair), and it is natural for that figure to have been greater than years past, as every year with ever increasing tax and customs revenue, more roads were being repaved that the years before. But no, 350 km of roads were not constructed. By far the most important matter in the field of infrastructure in Armenia at the moment in the highly strategic North-South Highway, whose construction has been frozen for almost the entirety of the past two years, while the government has been busy engaging in all it seems to know: Studying the companies that are building it for corruption. The only other road project of high strategic value is the M6 highway which was launched in 2016.
- The minimum wage was already scheduled to be raised and the poverty rate was already declining and projected to continue to decline.
- And finally, as much as I detest dignifying any statement regarding corruption with a response, I must say that I find it strange that anyone would take pride and broadcast a blatant and undeniable act of treason. When, for the sake of shameless self promotion, the name of the Armed Forces was dragged through the mud with outright lies linking the civilian vehicles at the Yerkrapah Volunteer Union compound to the Armed Forces (please, I urge you to watch the video below), or implying that the food or weapons there had been stolen from the Armed Forces. One does not need to condone nor condemn part or all of that which was Manvel Grigoryan, in order to be independently outraged that the name and honor of the Armed Forces were falsely tarnished for the sake of advancing the political fortunes of a dishonorable man.