Friday, 24 June 2005
Today a session of RA Anti-corruption council as presided at by council chairman Prime Minister A. Margaryan has been held at the Office of Government.
In accordance with a task set at the previous session, the council heard and took notice of the report made by Deputy Procurator General Gevorg Danielyan on the activities of RA General Procuracy aimed at the implementation of the government strategy and the program of measures for its realization, as well as on the progress in the fulfillment the commitments made by RA Government in the scope of action of this body regarding international conventions and the agreements. He advised that in order to better coordinate work in the field under consideration, the Board of the General Procuracy had approved the program of additional measures for 2004 towards the realization of the RA anti-corruption strategy and implementation measures, which involved the quasi-totality of General Procuracy's operational units. On this basis, competent authorities had taken a complex of measures in a number of areas. In particular, the state of affairs with the protection of public interest was investigated during performance of the requirements of the program with respect to education, transport and town-planning, checks were carried out with water supply, transport and agricultural operators to monitor the process of international loan programs implementation. Also, to determine the status of State interests protection in the expenditure of financial assets drawn from the state budget. Having presented the comparative statistics of the overall situation in sphere of crime prevention in Armenia and other CIS countries, the speaker went on to state that Armenia was among the few ones with steady decline of crime incidence.
He informed that due to overall improved performance of competent state authorities, 352 offences containing corruption risk had been recorded in the Republic of Armenia against 261 in recorded in 2003. The range of crimes revealed covered illegal business (23 businesses), fraudulous entrepreneurship (14) etc. According to the report, material losses incurred by the State and the economic operators stood at 5,902 mln dram of which 2, 632,7 million drams or 44,6 % were retreived during the preliminary stages of investigation.
The speaker emphasized the importance of the structural reforms carried out over the reported period, including, in particular, the creation in the structure of the General Procuracy of a department for combating corruption, improvement of personnel selection procedures, the approval of the rules of conduct for procuracy officers. etc.
Having estimated the performed work as positive in general, the Prime Minister focused on the need for the procuracy to ensure better coordination and accord in its workings with ministries and public agencies, provide for enhanced effeciency in the joint action carried out with other supervisory bodies and, in this context, upon the necessity of drafting the law "On Public Control", which is supposed to minimize corruption risk. The Prime Minister emphasized the importance of transparency in the nationwide campaign against corruption to build up the public confidence in the State and ensure more effective protection of the rights of each citizen.
The Council discussed and approved the methodology of monitoring public participation education and public health services. It had been developed under a UNDP-sponsored program for assistance to information society-oriented efforts and democratic management. Emphasized was the role of this methodology in the drive for corruption rate and remedial measures determination to be conducted by community observation groups.
Similarly, the members of the Council took notice of the report made by council member, Adviser to RA President and chairman of the anti-corruption strategy implementation monitoring commission Bagrat Yesayan on the visit to Armenia of a group of GRECO experts.
At the next council session as scheduled for the second half of July, similar reports will be presented by the President of CBA and the chairman of State Commission for Promotion of Economic Competitivity.
