The RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan and the director of the Nairit CJSC (hence Nairit) V. Melkonyan have started a new game, which resembles an operation of assimilating the state property. They are trying to grant to the Nairit the Nairit OSC, which established the Nairit in 2000 and the Nairit-2, which is the owner of 40% of the stocks of the Armenian-Chinese enterprise (Nairit is the Nairit-1). Indeed the word “granting” is used for a conditional meaning because otherwise without any “interest” the property of the state cannot just be granted to some company, the owner of which is juristically the foreign Raynoville company. But let’s go one by one. Till 2000 there was only one factory Nairit OSC. In 2000 it was split into three parts. The “mother” factory, the Nairit OSC, was a state-owned one. It established two more companies – the Nairit-1 and Nairit-2 CJSC. The first of those was the current Nairit (the owner of 80% of the stocks was the state till 2006 but in 2006 the owner of the 90% of the stock became the notorious Raynoville) and the second one till now is state-owned by 100%. The latter as it was mentioned is also the owner of the 40% of the stocks of the Armenian-Chinese joint company. This Armenian-Chinese joint company was established, when one line from Armenia was moved to China and a factory was built there. According to the preliminary program starting from 2010 the Nairit will receive an annual 6 million USD dividends from this company. Nevertheless the purpose of establishing 3 Nairits in 2000 was to leave the whole debt of the factory on the “mother” Nairit so that Nairit-1 and Nairit-2 wouldn’t have debts to further operate in a normal way. The Nairit-1 (the current Nairit) was given anything necessary for its normal operation. And the dissolvent process of the Nairit OSC, which inherited great debts, still continues. During this process the Nairit gradually sells all of its actives and acquits its debts. Recently Melkonyan applied to the court to appeal decision 875 of the government, dated 2000 and wrote a letter to T. Sargsyan by offering to convert the Nairit-2 into the property of the Nairit, by which the whole property of the Nairit-1 all the actives, which were left over by the Nairit OSI. And as among those actives were the ones that were also sold out Melkonyan demands from the state a refund in the amount of 380 million AMD. The first instance courts and the court of cassation have satisfied Melkonyan’s suit and the court of appeal will hear the case on August 3. However, as in 2006 Raynoville bought the Nairit-1 with those actives, which were given to the Nairit 1 by the decision of 2000 then it is logical to assume that in parallel with privatizing the actives of the Nairit OSI Raynoville should have at least should have returned the money. The reason for that is that during the privatization the actives of Raynoville were the ones, which Melkonyan currently demands from the state and tries to make the property of the factory. But it turns out that the state has decided to suffice the law suit of Melkonyan, by which it urges the state to provide 380 million AMD to the Nairit and the actives, which have not been paid by the Nairit OSI. Let us once again mention that Melkonyan is trying to make the make the actives of the Nairit OSI the property of the Nairit without being responsible at least a part of Nairit’s debts. This is only one side of the medal. Melkonyan is also trying to make the property of the Nairit also the Nairit-2 state company, which as it was mentioned was going to annually receive 6% million dividends starting from 2010. According to the chairman of the HRAK party Harutyuna Arakelyan Melkonyan wrote a letter to the Prime Minister of Armenia Tigran Sargsyan by mentioning that without the Nairit-2 the Nairit cannot operate. Melkonyan suggested him that the Nairit-2 should become the property of the Nairit in lieu of the debt. By another court suit of Melkonyan the court has decided that the Nairit-2 should pay 4.5 billion AMD for the construction of its branch in China. And by our information the Nairit-2 is officially moved is going to be given to Raynoville in direct participation of the Prime Minister. And Tigran Sargsyan’s participation is seen in a way that he is trying to persuade the Chine party to refuse the demand of the 100% participation on part of the Armenian state company. According to well-known sources this one of the reasons why Sargsyan lobbied that his brother is appointed Armenia’s Ambassador to China. The most interesting thing in this story is that Tigran Sargsyan is trying to show that it is a public demand that the Nairit-2 be granted to the Nairit through it’s the notorious public council. One of the sub-committees of the public council, headed by Vazgen Safaryan, will be discussing the issue of the reunion on the two Nairits. The people, who are gathered here, will probably one day demand to grant the Nairit-2 to Raynoville. Of course, they will not take into consideration the fact that if the Nairit-2, in other words the state, owes the Nairit 4.5 billion AMD then on the other hand the Nairit owes the state 8 billion AMD for water to the Yerevan Water Company. And as the Nairit-2 and the Yerevan Water Company are 100% state-owned the law enables to conduct reformulation of the debt. It means that the 4.5 million AMD debt of the Nairit-2 consider acquitted by instead increasing the debt of the Nairit to the Yerevan Water Company by 4.5 billion AMD and by making the whole debt 3.5 billion AMD. But as it’s known in our country issues are solved in a different logic.
P.S. We tried to find out from the press service of the Nairit whether the mentioned information is true or not. We also tried to find out whether the Nairit was planning to appeal decision 875 of the government, dated 2000 and whether Melkonyan wrote a letter to T. Sargsyan by offering to convert the Nairit-2 into the property of the Nairit. They responded to us that at this moment they don’t have such information. “We should verify this information and try to find out if we can share such information with you even if it’s true,” said the head of the press department of the factory Anoush Harutyunyan.