The president’s office revision department is studying the activities of the “Linsi” foundation, coordinated by Artashes Tumanyan. By the way, after the resignation of Tumanyan the president appointed his personnel head Armen Gevorgyan as the “Linsi” foundation coordinator. Many people think that if the authorities want, they can find a lot of violations. Besides that according to the press, after resignation A. Tumanyan has been called to the National Security Service and the department of organized crime of the RA police.
While the president’s revision department is studying the past performance of the “Linsi” foundation let’s try to find out what the foundation has done in Shirak Marz.
The “Linsi” foundation has been working in Shirak Marz since 2001. Kirk Kirkoryan provided 155 million dollars to Armenia with the purpose of implementing the “Linsi” foundation program, 44 million of which was intended for reconstructing this region. The program was finished in 2003. And in the framework of the “Linsi” foundation program 3674 apartments were built and reconstructed in this region.
But many people in Gyumri think that this work that was done in Gyumri is more like “laundering”. So in order to be able to do this “laundering” it was important for them to have their entrusted representatives in the foundation. And accordingly most of the “Linsi” foundation officials were citizens of Vanadzor, which are the following: head of the “Linsi” foundation coordinating board Artashes Tumanyan, head of the program coordinator in Shirak region Hrayr Sargsyan, etc. According to our sources, most of the companies winning the construction competitions were registered in Vanadzor. As for the technical facilities and working power, these were taken from Gyumri. These competitions were organized in Yerevan and were close for public. After these competitions all winners were called to the 6th department of the RA police to write about their activities.
As for this program, the citizens of Gyumri were very happy to learn about this program because they wouldn’t have to leave for abroad to earn some money to keep their families anymore. But later the foundation didn’t give the salaries on time. As a result of this the workers periodically organized a strike near the regional management board of Shirak Marz. The workers were informed from them that they had transferred the sums in time and sent them to their chiefs “to clear their accounts with”. As for their chiefs, they told them that the prices for construction materials had increased and they couldn’t pay the salaries on time. But as we know these people were told whom to buy these construction materials from and how much to pay for it beforehand and were promised that in case of buying it from somewhere else they would be punished. For instance although there are good stone mines in this region they brought the same stone from Sisian saying that it is more profitable from the economical point of view. Besides that the “Linsi” program had to also clear the territories and scavenge the garbage in the surrounding areas of these buildings. But later it turned out that their money was not enough and this sum was provided by the state budget (300 million). Please note that the proposed period of the “Linsi” program implementation had to finish in 2003. But since the deadline was being expended due to some objective and subjective reasons, they found a very original solution. They decided to cut down the number of the proposed apartments for 120 and build 4 storey buildings instead of five storey ones, and 3 storey ones instead of 4 storey buildings. As for the quality, words are not enough. Citizens of Gyumri very often complain about the quality of sewage tubes, roofs and other constructions.
Just after the end of this program some people in Gyumri started to drive luxurious cars. And the owners of these cars were the people that had been involved in the “Linsi” foundation programs.
By the way, yesterday we asked head of Shirak regional management board, ARF representative Romik Manukyan whether he thought it possible to find any violations connected with the “Linsi” foundation activities in Shirak region, which could later harm the reputation of Artashes Tumanyan. “There is an office which is responsible for the “Linsi” foundation program implementation; you should ask them about this. But I can say that due to the “Linsi” foundation there were a lot of changes in construction. The “Linsi” foundation programs brought a new quality to Gyumri. They have built very comfortable apartments. As for the other problems, I think those problems concern the people that have given orders or are examining their activities. I don’t want to speak about this. But of course where there is work, there are shortcomings. There are no shortcomings only where there is no work”, said head of Lori region, member of ARF Romik Manukyan. But it is very strange that the “top authorities” have just learned about this recently.