Transparency International: There are negative trends that question efficiency of fight against corruption in Armenia

The Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center on Friday issued a statement on the International Anti-Corruption Day.

“During 2022, the studies and analyses of local and international experts on corruption and anti-corruption policy, the reports from journalists covering these topics, specialized public organizations and independent experts also prove that there are obvious negative trends and problematic manifestations [in Armenia] that question the fight against corruption, its efficiency and sometimes even the political will [in the country],” the statement noted, in particular.

“Summarizing, we can argue that the current challenges related to corruption are the failure of the mechanisms of checks and balances of the branches of [Armenia’s] government, problems of formation and integrity of law enforcement and judicial bodies, appointment of persons with dubious biographies to high level positions and manifestations of patronage, problematic public procurement and suspicious successes of persons affiliated to high-ranking officials in tenders, trends of convergence of politics with big business, threats of shrinking of civil space, particularly in the mining industry, general non-transparent, non-participative and non-accountable governance and the formation of new corruption schemes. These issues are currently episodic, but they can quickly deepen and form a new system of state capture, which is unacceptable,” the statement added, in part.

“Armenian government should seriously reevaluate its actions and failures in the field of fighting corruption and immediately take effective and efficient steps to restore public trust,” concluded the statement by the Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center.