The government of Armenia has provided the Public Chamber with office premises located on the 6th floor of Erebuni Plaza hotel, in neighborhood with the office of former president Robert Kocharyan. The Public Chamber occupies four rooms on this floor, which is decorated luxuriously. One of the rooms with a reception room is for the chairman of the Chamber Vazgen Manukyan, another room is for the staff, and two rooms are for the PC’s committees. The Public Council has 12 committees and about 1600 members. One of the employees of the PC informed us that the Public Chamber moved to that new office in the end of last year. Currently the staff is busy with buying furniture and furnishing the office. At present the office has two employees. Yesterday we tried to talk to Vazgen Manukyan about the activities of the Public Council but his secretary told us he “was busy”.
Even though since starting the cooperation with the authorities the president of the National Democratic Union (NDU) tries not to have a direct contact with journalists we succeeded and had a short conversation with him. Vazgen Manukyan says they have a list of vacancies to employ more six people, which has to be approved. Officially only these 8 people will be paid for their work; Vazgen Manukyan and the other members of the PC will not be paid. However, according to our information the authorities have allocated a large amount of money for the Public Chamber, which will be paid as “compensation for expenses”. In other words, the president and the other well-known members of the Public Chamber will be paid in cash too.
The mentioned commission is in charge of addressing issues the society is interested in, develop recommendations to the government to solve the problems. However, since its foundation the Chamber has made a couple of statements, which were to stand for the policy of the government only. Thus, it is clear that it will continue working this way. After March 1 the Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan circulated the idea of establishing a Public Chamber to be in charge of weakening the tension in the society. Reminder: this summer the Public Chamber applied to president Serzh Sargsyan to issue amnesty. Certainly it was not the Public Chamber’s decision only. Before the amnesty Serzh Sargsyan announced that in order to issue amnesty people had to apply to him first. The Public Council also made a double standard announcement concerning the protocols signed between Armenia and Turkey mainly standing for the government’s position. It means that in fact this institution does not weaken the tension in the society but to praise the work of the government. It is not by chance that the mentioned council involves artists and activists who are the government’s “clients”, starting from Vazgen Manukyan, Khosrov Harutyunyan and ending up with composer Robert Amirkhanyan. The mentioned people have not only found a good spot to hang out but also will get paid in cash as we mentioned above.
Yesterday we asked Vazgen Manukyan how much money the government pays every month to rent the office for the PC. The latter told us he did not know but according to our information, the price for renting one square meter in Erebuni Plaza hotel is AMD8-12.000. The PC occupies about 200 square meters. According to our calculations, the government pays $6.000 every month to rent this luxurious office premises for the Public Chamber. The government pays to rent another luxurious office space for former president Robert Kocharyan on the same floor as well. The representation office of the CoE in Armenia is located on the same floor too. We were informed by a staffer of the mentioned CoE office that they will work in that office for more two years. According to our information, Vazgen Manukyan has demanded a separate larger and private place for the office. The government has not given a private office space. However, there are rumors saying that the government wants to reconstruct the three storey building (which belongs to the Embassy of Greece) located in the beginning of Saryan street and give to the PC. The government of Greece has bought this building to reconstruct it and use for the purposes of the Embassy, but did not provide financial support and now the building is empty. It is not excluded that the government may buy this building back and give it to the Public Chamber. “If you lobby for that we will be very grateful,” said Vazgen Manukyan during our phone conversation. Following the presidential election 2008 and aftermath events of March 1 there were rumors saying that the authorities had given a lot of money and a villa in Spain to Vazgen Manukyan. In the pre-election period Vazgen Manukyan’s NDU party was negotiating with the Heritage and ARF parties to make an alliance before the elections and it is the period when Vazgen Manukyan was “recruited” by the authorities. It was done by former NDU member and existing RPA member and prime-minister Tigran Sargsyan. Following the elections the authorities gave large premises on the crossroad of Abovyan and Moskovyan streets to Vazgen Manukyan, where his daughter opened the Motivi shop. One of the NDU members who is very disappointed about Vazgen Manukyan’s cooperation with the authorities told us that in fact the authorities have given more financial compensation to him for cooperating in the election and post-election periods. According to our sources of information standing close to the NDU, Vazgen Manukyan received 10 million dollars in cash for his services. Our interlocutor from NDU, who asked us not to publish the name, said that following the elections when the NDU members saw their leader had betrayed them and joined the authorities, their party started to separate and crack. Many members left the party, but in answer to their complaints Vazgen Manukyan said, “You don’t understand it, this is the way it should be”.