Let’s not forget to mention, that before getting appointed to this
position, V. Barseghyan was the Vice-Minister of Youth Issues at the
Ministry of Culture and he was generally controlling the “new young
vultures”. Today, he has moved from “vultures” to “surveilling” cars.
During the past two months, “HyeLur” (Armenian News) has been ending
its news programs with showing the candid shootings of the president’s
surveillance team.
The media has already published many articles about how the shootings
take place and what happens after them. “168 hours” weekly got more
detailed information. According to sources, after each taping, the
corresponding staff of each district’s police department goes to the
home of the driver who has violated a law and insists that he pay
250,000 drams to the “Vahan” benevolent fund’s account number. If the
driver refuses, then the police threaten him by claiming that they will
“show their “krishas”, sponsors, and embarrass them on television.” In
order to save themselves from humiliation, the drivers go to the
“Vahan” benevolent fund to transfer money to the account number,
without knowing which law they have violated and how much the fee is
according to the law. One of the police officers told us that usually
the fees do not pass the limit of 10,000 drams. But if the driver
crosses the line, then he has to pay 250,000 drams instead of 1000-2000
drams due to that “surveillance”.
“168 hours” weekly got some information. We found out that the
“Vahan” benevolent fund is registered in the police system, so the
account on which the 250,000 drams has been transferred is at the
“Ardshininvest” bank and the number is the following: 247013919904.
The owner of the fund, retired lieutenant of the Ministry of Internal
Affairs Ghevond Ispiryan did not deny the fact that the drivers
themselves transfer 250,000 drams to the account number. We tried to
find out what the fund really does. The retired lieutenant Ispiryan
told us how it all began. The fund was founded in 2001 and the money
received by the fund is distributed to the war veterans and pensioners
(8000). Besides that, according to Ispiryan, they also have 1240
invalid people for whom they show humanitarian aid. “We provide the
tuition for the children whose fathers are deceased and we give 5000
drams to each child of a needy family,” said Gh. Ispiryan.
According to sources, the drivers of the cars who refuse to transfer
that much money to the fund’s account are forced to leave the car in
the penalty zone for 10 days and during that time, the police
continuously threaten them saying that they will show them with their
families on television. The driver gets afraid from that threat and is
forced to pay 250,000 drams so that nothing can be heard or seen on
television.
One more piece of information. Yesterday, we tried to get information
from the Minister of Finances and Economy of the RA Vartan Khachaturyan
about where the driver’s fees paid for violating the laws are kept. Mr.
Khachaturyan assured us: “Of course, in the state budget, where else?”
In response to the question of how much money has been transferred to
the budget as a result of the violations, Mr. Khachaturyan responded:
“I don’t remember how much, different money transfers enter the state
budget.”
In addition, the “001SS05” Nissan-Maxima car serving the family of
president of the Customs Committee Armen Avetisyan has also been
“surveiled”. Since Armen Avetisyan did not want television stations to
show his family’s ‘krisha”, Armen gave Afrikyan 250,000 drams so that
he can transfer that to the fund’s account. The money has certainly
been transferred to the account, but what about the budget …