NEW CORRUPTION SCANDAL: COMPLAINT AGAINST FINANCE MINISTER VAHE HOVHANNISYAN IS IN THE GENERAL PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE

     A group of lawyers from the Chamber of Advocates of the Republic of Armenia submitted a crime report to the Prosecutor General’s Office on December 4, 2024, which concerns the financial abuses and embezzlements committed by Minister of Finance Vahe Hovhannisyan, which clearly contain corruption risks. The lawyers presented compelling arguments to the Prosecutor General so that a criminal proceeding is initiated immediately and, according to the lawyers, the act is given a proper criminal-legal assessment. During a conversation with the head of the initiative group—lawyer and former president of the Chamber of Advocates Ara Zohrabyan—and Gohar Mkrtchyan, the chief specialist of the Legal Department of the RA Ministry of Finance, we learned some details related to the scandalous case. It turns out the minister had a $1 million loan, and after some time it miraculously disappeared from the official declaration report.

     Whose account was used and how the minister repaid it is unclear, and it is precisely these and similar questions that the lawyers expect answers to from the Prosecutor’s Office. It turns out that back in 2021, the minister received the mentioned approximately $1,000,000 interest-free loan. Afterwards, Vahe Hovhannisyan purchased 100% of the shares of “Caritas Italiana” CJSC for $1,050,000, and later reorganized that company into “G-Coders” LLC, selling his shares to a relative. In 2023, the same “G-Coders” LLC was granted by the RA government an import customs duty exemption of 1.8 billion AMD worth of goods, with the exempted customs duty amount totaling 118 million AMD. As of 2023, Vahe Hovhannisyan had a lending claim right of 52,614,000 AMD toward “G-Coders” LLC. “But the shady dealings surrounding the minister’s property are not limited to this,” notes Gohar Mkrtchyan. According to the lawyer, RA Minister of Finance Vahe Hovhannisyan leased his guesthouse to “Vardeni” LLC, which, without a tender, was paid more than one million AMD for organizing and conducting game-training exercises for the Ministry of Finance employees.

     By comparing the declarations submitted for the previous three years, the lawyers uncovered significant discrepancies, particularly the disappeared debts and the final bank balances far exceeding the declared income, without mentioning any other legal source of financial flow. When asked whether Gohar Mkrtchyan fears persecution from the minister and the government, considering that it was thanks to her that the facts of the abuses became accessible to the legal community, and that she was largely the main exposer of these corruption schemes, she responded firmly and aptly: “Silence and conformity are exactly the evils that lead our country to destruction; if we want to move forward, we must fight.”

     Representative of the initiative group, lawyer Ara Zohrabyan, also submitted an inquiry to the RA government to clarify whether information about Vahe Hovhannisyan’s conflict of interest with “G-Coders” LLC was known during the adoption of Government Decision No. 1942-A of 09.11.2023 or not.