The Prosecutor General’s Office initiated a criminal case against “Public TV Company of Armenia” CJSC in 2017, after audits conducted by the Ministry of Finance led to the discovery of the misuse of 168.5 million AMD from their budget. This is reported by the Public Relations Department of the RA Prosecutor General’s Office.

According to the report, the CJSC has signed contracts amounting to 2.4 billion AMD with various organizations and private entrepreneurs for the purchase of TV programs, films and series during the period of 2015-2016 at the expense of state budget allocations on grant contracts for the lease of technical equipment.  

“According to the survey, it was found that 4 contracts for the purchase of films or TV programs totalling to 118.2 million AMD, were drawn up and used as false or counterfeit documents. Specifically, documents regarding many staff members or specialists in the workplace or service companies and their expenses were confirmed. Meanwhile, according to the data obtained from the RA SRC, it was revealed that these economic entities or general staff were not registered, or their number was considerably less.

Additionally, in the case of contracts regarding the provision of technical equipment, the CJSC signed two lease contracts with third parties amounting to 30.5 million AMD, making for unreasonable, extra costs.

Television production and technical lease contracts were signed despite the fact that the CJSC had directoral, tv operational, photography and videography departments equipped with more than 50 professionals and hundreds of units with different technical means of TV production.

In addition, in 2015-2016, 4 contracts totalling to 471.6 million AMD were signed with construction companies, contractors and technical supervisors made up of over exaggeration of reality or falsified documents, performance or acceptance acts, showing a total construction of 8.8 million AMD which have been paid but which never took place.  

Months ago, the Ministry of Finance inspection of Public Television of Armenia CJSC found that more than 2 billion AMD worth of cases of violation using state resources. There were numerous publications in the press about this topic.

The Chairman of the Council of Public Television, Ruben Jaghinyan said in an interview with Mediamax that there weren’t any violations of 2 billion AMD, that there were inaccuracies and inconsistencies.

“The word ‘violation’ is only a legal formulation, which, however, does not mean stealing or embezzlement, as it has been understood by some people,” he said.

In a conversation with reporters at the National Assembly, Margarita Grigoryan, Executive Director of the TV Company said that the same report with the same text has been accepted for years.

“Money laundering, ineffective waste did not take place. There was a difference between the naming of budget lines, which we were told later that we should apply to the Ministry of Finance for such changes,” commented Grigoryan.

Hetq, referring to the Ministry of Finance, writes that the recoverable amount of 183.6 million AMD had already been registered in the state budget, 132.6 million AMD have been recorded as rebalancing, and the company has corrected the shortcomings of 1 billion 692 thousand AMD.

Gayane Asryan