During the October 15 rally the first President of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan once again spoke about the relations of the Armenian government and the Armenian businessmen. He reviewed these relations purely in the context of corruption. In the words of the first President, “corruption is a phenomenon that is mostly characteristic to the government and not the businessmen. The businesses are the participants of corruption process and not the authors or initiators.” “Once I have mentioned that the businessmen are often times required to breach the law to avoid taxes and customs payments, be bribed and bribe others, hide their actual profits, etc. But it’s not their fault and perhaps they wouldn’t like to do so. They just have to violate the rules, which were defined by the government. They cannot help cutting deals with the government in order to be able to do something in the country. In fact the businessmen are paying taxes, which go not to the budget but to certain officials. Many of them would be glad to work in the field of law because often they get to pay more than they are required by the law. But they cannot help it. Otherwise they will either appear in prison or give up their businesses. Even the most law-abiding businessmen when they appear in such countries they get to abide with the rules defined by the governments; they get to offer bribes, avoid taxes, etc,” stated Ter-Petrosyan. The first President didn’t say anything new to anyone and especially for the businessmen. They feel the influence of these words every day in their lives. And all of them complain about the current situation when speaking to their loyalists. But that’s all they can do. None of the Armenian businessmen would dare to openly speak or complain about corruption or the current complicated situation. They have their colleague Khachatur Sukiasyan as a precedent. At any rate yesterday we tried to receive some opinions from the major Armenian businessmen and the mostly the ones, who are also members of parliament. We asked them whether they agree with the arguments of Ter-Petrosyan. All of our interviewees agreed that corruption is characteristic to the chinovniks and not the businessmen. But they either avoid speaking or gave avoiding interpretation about the second part of Ter-Petrosyan’s speech, which is that the businessmen don’t dare to raise their complaints. “Corruption is a wide-spread phenomenon. It has penetrated in our lives way long in the past and importunely this evil is enrooted in all the sectors of social life,” such a general response was given the spokesman of Gagik Tsarukyan Khachik Galstyan. There were many statements and conclusions drawn that over 50% of the Armenian economy is in the shade, which means that the budget is in shade and so are the tax payments. Therefore a certain different budget is formed on the side. The government as well speaks about the shade and they in their campaign platforms promise to cut those. And as Levon Ter-Petrosyan says the businessmen are actually abiding with their tax obligations but their payments appear not in the state budget but in the pockets of certain people. He claims that many of them would be glad to work legally and pay legal taxes. So they get to pay more than they are required. “As of such question we have numerously said that the enterprises belonging to Mr. Tsarukyan are all in the tax field and there can be no questions. And those are exaggerated rumors that in Armenia the shady market is 60%. I think it’s less,” said Galstyan. Another businessman MP Manvel Badeyan didn’t find anything new in the words of Levon Ter-Petrosyan and added that corruption starts from the chinovnik level. “That is no news. Indeed corruption is not characteristic to businessmen. It is so trivial that I’d dream that someone denies that. The authors of corruption are the statesmen and not the citizen that works in this or other sector. Indeed, corruption impedes the development of the state and it hinders the development of businesses and entrepreneurship in general but it is no news,” told us Manvel Badeyan on the phone. Another MP Khachik Manukyan also complained about unequal conditions. “We don’t work out from the frames of the law. We want to make sure that everything is in the frames of the law. Our goal is to work in the field of law. But it also creates an issue because there is an issue of equality of the field and often it can be discrimination,” said K. Manukyan. Certain major businessmen merely refused to give their comments on this theme. They were saying that they wouldn’t like to invent a new bicycle or speak about the existence of some phenomenon, which the whole society is aware of. And that includes especially the businessmen and the government. And the ones, who agreed their opinion be published, would give very moderate and mild formulations about corruption, shady economy and the illegal activities of certain businesses in the country. In other words their opinions were formulated quite “diplomatically.” They were blaming the statesmen but not the government. They’d maximum say that the government is trying to confine the powers of the statesmen but they don’t succeed admirably. “Indeed there is certain linkage between businesses and certain statesmen but the author is always the statesman. They create barriers beyond the law or otherwise give advantages to certain people to avoid taxes and obligations. Often times, unequal conditions are created,” added Badeyan. Major businessman, father of two MPs, Hrant Vardanyan also agrees with Ter-Petrosyan and his colleagues in the aspect that corruption is characteristic to statesmen rather than businessmen. “If the statesmen work in the shade it doesn’t mean that the businessmen word in the shade as well. But corruption and shady market exists not only in our economy but in the whole world,” said Vardanyan. And when we asked whether it’s true that the businessmen cut a deal with the statesmen to avoid taxes but in fact they pay more on the side than what they’d have paid if they had worked in the legal field Vardanyan told us to send the question to him in a written form. “Don’t ask me questions like that. I don’t know what Ter-Petrosyan spoke about,” he said.
