Any changes in state institutions or laws in our country are usually associated with private interests to make money. One of those changes is the decision to give the right of traffic police for vehicle technical checkup to private companies.
Now they are amending some laws to fulfill that decision. Last week the government headed by the president approved the law on vehicle technical checkup, according to which “vehicle technical checkup shall be conducted by licensed legal entities or private enterprises in their working places by using the necessary technical facilities”. By the way, last year when the relative law was adopted in August, the governmental session was headed by the president again. Thus, in the future people will not have to take their cars to the traffic police checkup offices, but to private checkup offices. Analysts say that this is done in many other countries too. As for the specialists of this field, they say that this reformation is done for the purpose of doing that job more effectively and fighting corruption. Notwithstanding, the experience shows that almost all the governmental decisions to fight corruption are making the field more complicated and corruptible. Meanwhile, such changes are done purposely so that a group of people may have super profits. This reformation is one of such changes too. It is expected that this transformation will be finished by the end of this year, meanwhile the president has ordered the transport and communication minister, Andranik Manukyan to present a report to the government on the necessary minimum for technical checkup capacities by March 15. By the way, it is worth mentioning that this change was done to leave this institution under the control of the transport and communication ministry, but not the traffic police. As for the technical checkup process, it won’t be done by specialists, but by computers and special facilities. This means that the mentioned technical facilities are a very important factor to give a permission for driving and reporting that cars are maintained well, thus it means that the companies that will do this work should also have good technical equipments and facilities. The government officials say that they are going to organize a competition to give that right to companies. The competition will be organized by the transport and communication ministry. Firstly it may seem that everything is normal, but we know how usually competitions are organized in Armenia. People don’t believe that competitions are organized openly, in transparent and fair conditions. Moreover, they are sure that the competitions are just an imitation and everything is decided in advance. We can bring an example from the same field. Last year the right of CO gassing capacity checkup was licensed in the same manner too. This activity was carried out by the traffic police too. The purpose of this change was to decrease the CO gassing capacities. Later the right of licensing that field was given to the ministry of environmental preservation. Accordingly, the ministry of environmental protection organized a competition and decided which companies are eligible to carry out such activities. It is hard to say whether the competition was fair and transparent. Before the competition the press covered information that the outcome had been decided beforehand too. Only one company (“Milta” company) won the competition for the right to replace 5-6 CO gassing checkup points in Armenia, which it is said that belongs to NA deputy Murad Guloyan and a person named Vlad of Avan.
It is hard to say that due to this reformation the CO gassing capacity has been cut down or not, furthermore, motorists say that besides the legal fee (1500-2000 dram) now they have to give some bribe too. Now almost the same thing is done with the technical checkup institution too. We suppose that the ministry of transport and communication will organize a competition to select the winners that they have agreed beforehand, after which the selected companies will have to also charge “extra money” to get enough profit. Furthermore, it is not excluded that this activity may be controlled by Andranik Manukyan, who likes cars and used to be the owner of “Ararat Lada” company, which later was renamed as “Armenia Lada” and was given under Rafael Shahmuradyan’s possession.
It is worth mentioning that the number of imported cars has significantly grown in the recent years. According to unofficial information there are about 350.000 cars in Armenia now. The high ranked state officials have seen that this field is very profitable and decided that it will be better if this money goes to their pockets, but not to the budget or the pockets of the police officers. The state fee for technical checkup sums 6000 AMD. Besides this sum motorists also pay extra 5000 AMD to escape from any bureaucratic processes. Now they have decided to direct this money flows into their pockets. As for the state, it will be entitled to tax them only. Notwithstanding, we think that it is logical that the owners of those companies will be again in high ranked governmental officials or oligarchs, so as they usually do, this time they may find ways not to pay taxes too.