On November 25, 2019, Prime Minister Nikօl Pashinyan posted an update on his Facebook page, where he mentioned addresses and telephone numbers of several organizations accepting scrap metal, and urged citizens to hand over scrap metal to those organizations. The Prime Minister noted that the unbroken frames of cars at all the mentioned addresses are bought for 10-12 thousand drams per ton. The purchase is made by “Metexim” LLC.
Following that, “Media Advocate” Initiative applied to the Corruption Prevention Commission since one could notice here certain corruption risks. The application of the initiative has it: “Based on this statement, the Prime Minister, using his position, advertised ” Metexim “LLC and, by means of a call, promoted the activities of a private organization, actually providing favorable conditions for the latter. At the same time, instead of raising issueս of public interest, the latter used the resource provided by the position of Prime Minister to play the role of an informant, which is not appropriate for this important public office. At the same time, while implementing the function of the informant, the latter showed a discriminatory approach, that is, he did not list all the organizations that procure and process scrap metal, but showed selectivity, ignoring other competitor companies (such as Yerksevmek).
A few days ago, former RA Ambassador to the Holy See Mikayel Minasyan noted that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is connected with corruption schemes in the field of scrap metal. There is no response from the government regarding this statement, and the application of the “Media Advocate” was rejected later than the scheduled deadline․ Some minor deviations were mentioned as reasons justifying the rejection, which would not have any impact on the content of the general application.
Considering the importance of this matter, “Media Advocate” initiative is raising the issue again. It is going to reapply to the Corruption Prevention Commission.
