EcoLur
“Regional Monitoring Institute” local NGO has sent a letter to David Dole, the Asian Development Bank resident representative in Armenia. The letter says,
“Dear Mr. Dole,
On 18.09.2015 we received a call from the Municipality of Kapan and were informed that at 14:30 on the same day public discussions on the project activities of improving water supply system in the city of Kapan implemented by “Armenian Water and Sewerage Company” CJSC and funded by the Asian Development Bank would be held in Kapan Municipality.
Right at the public discussion we found out that the Municipality of Kapan had been informed of the event only one and a half hours before it started. After getting introduced with the disseminated informational leaflets and preliminary explanations of the discussion organizer it became vivid that the final stage of the project’s construction phase was close, therefore it became a must to create illusion of cooperation with the society. For this reason the representative of "HGSN" LLC Hasmik Aslanyan did her best to make the citizens present at that obscure event sign a preliminary prepared list as a proof of having participated at the public discussion.
The event organizers were explained that they had no right to organize an illegal public discussion, that public awareness campaign included use of Mass Media, e-mail and announcements, which however hadn’t been applied. In order to save the situation the organizers put the term “public awareness” into circulation which however was not defined under any legal act and as a matter of fact was a timely composed expression conveying no legal content. Nevertheless, the organizers insisted on continuing the present event regardless of the fact that the NGO representatives explained they hadn’t been prepared for that discussion. In fact, the society members hadn’t been informed of the noted discussion as prescribed by law and therefore they couldn’t effectively participate in the issues under discussion.
In case if a public discussion is organized in compliance with law the representatives of public sector are prepared to raise their concerns regarding the efficiency, transparency of the implemented projects and numerous issues of interest for the citizens and NGO representatives, they are ready to present their suggestions and comments. Hence, in order not to participate in an illegal activity and not to legitimize it by their presence the NGO representatives calling for application of legal procedures and the head of the Kapan Aarhus Center left the hall of the Kapan Municipality.
Thus, the aforementioned once again proves the fact that the funds provided for the improvement of the Kapan water supply system are utilized inefficiently and it is impossible to obtain comprehensive and impartial information on the implementation course of the activities planned by the project, its scope and quality. There are serious concerns regarding the fact that the activities either won’t be completed in the scheduled period of time or we are likely to face poor quality performance due to inefficient management of the project resources.
President of the organization
Arshavir Khalapyan”
September 29, 2015 at 18:18