Corruption in Armenia
The agreement includes provisions to fight organized crime and corruption, protect human rights, and further develop democracy in the country.
Armenia put large emphasis on the fight against corruption, ensuring the participation of various NGOs, governmental and non-governmental actors, and other institutions in the act of anti-corruption promotion.
[10] According to Transparency International's 2014 report, entrenched corruption, strong patronage networks, a lack of clear separation between private enterprise and public office, as well as, the overlap between political and business elites in Armenia render the implementation of anti-corruption efforts relatively inefficient and feed a pervasive political apathy and cynicism on the part of citizens, who do not see an impactful role for themselves in the fight against corruption.
"[12] The selective and non-transparent application of tax, customs and regulatory rules, as well as weak enforcement of court decisions fuels opportunities for corruption.
[13] Furthermore, the Armenian Anti-Corruption Council was accused of lavish spending and has largely failed to investigate or prosecute senior officials.
[17] Despite the success of the authorities in reducing petty corruption/bribery in some citizen-government interactions, anti-corruption watchdogs report that entrenched corruption, strong patronage networks, a lack of clear separation between private enterprise and public office, as well as, the overlap between political and business elites limit the effective implementation of anti-corruption efforts.
[20] In March 2004, an ad hoc commission of the National Assembly, investigating the use of a $30 million World Bank loan concluded that mismanagement and corruption among government officials and private firms was the reason of the failure of the program to upgrade Yerevan's battered water infrastructure.
[21] In August 2007, Bruce Tasker, a Yerevan-based British engineer who had participated in the parliamentary inquiry as an expert, publicly implicated not only Armenian officials and businessmen but also World Bank representatives in Yerevan in the alleged misuse of the loan.
In a 4 October 2007 news conference, the World Bank Yerevan office head Aristomene Varoudakis denied the allegations, claiming that the World Bank disclosed fully all information available on the project to the parliamentary commission and that based on this information, there was no evidence of fraud or mismanagement in the project.
The projects that are built on these sites are not of state interest, but rather are privately owned by the same authorities who have executed the eminent domain clause.
