EcoLur
“Regional Monitoring Institute” NGO continues demanding from the financial institutions funding the project on Kapan Town water supply system improvement to undertake responsibility for the program. This material refers to the recent correspondence of the Asian Development Bank and “Regional Monitoring Institute” NGO on the problem with water supply in Kapan Town.
ADB letter
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“Regional Monitoring Institute” NGOs letter to Asian Development Bank
"To: Mr. Cesar Lawrence, Asian Development Bank Deputy Director
Armenia Resident Office of the Asian Development Bank
Dear Mr. Lawrence,
In fact the content of your letter corresponds to the retraction text published on the website of “Ecolur” news media by the representatives of Kapan water supply network failed project a couple of days ago.
With the present letter we would like to one by one address all those points which were identified in your letter. It should also be mentioned that we are not going to keep the present correspondence endlessly. The issue of water supply is a national security issue. Hence, if the donor organizations and the organizations responsible for the security of water supply network reveal such indifference, respective law enforcement agencies should thereafter be involved in the problem resolution.
Therefore:
1. First we would like to speak about the violations and existing facts related to them. There are so many of them that it isn’t rational to address them all in the letter. I should only mention that more than 150 deviations from the quality of drinking water are registered based on the official data (we will submit respective documents to the representatives of the ADB). It should also be noted that at some locations water pipelines are joint to heating pipes being used since soviet times which can obviously have unpredictable disastrous consequences on the population’s health.
2. As to affirming that the present process was not subject to environmental impact assessment, I should note that it was rather due to the effort of avoiding responsibility than to being unaware of the national legislation. The law requirements regulating the present sector were precisely presented in our previous letter addressed to Mr. Lawrence, the deputy director of the Armenia Resident Office of the ADB, on the following: “In accordance with the RA law on “Environmental Impact Expertise” (in effect since 1995), as well as with the RA law on “Environmental Impact Assessment and Expertise” (in effect since 23 July 2014) socio-economic, urban development, as well as other types of territorial planning documents, procedures, schemes and plans (fundamental documents) are subject to environmental impact assessment and state environmental expertise prescribed by the national legislation and by international commitments of Armenia”. Hence, the problem is not the millimeters of the pipelines, but the type of the activity which is subject to environmental impact assessment based on the Article 15 of the RA law on “Environmental Impact Expertise” in effect since 1995, as territorial planning activity of urban development nature. This is an obligatory condition also based on international agreements with the involvement of Armenia and is called “Strategic environmental assessment”. It is implemented for the types of activities requiring comprehensive expertise (for
instance, confirmation of plans, restoration of water supply networks, etc.).
3. The statement that “Armenian Water and Sewerage Company” CJSC organized “public discussion” on 24 October 2013 in Kapan doesn’t proceed from the conditions required for such type of activities in accordance with the legislation either, since a “public discussion” organized in the frames of the law was to be held based on legislatively defined precise procedure which had not been carried out. The noted public event was just an awareness meeting, after which more than eleven thousand petition signatures were gathered in Kapan with the request of not providing the water supply network to the “Armenian Water and Sewerage Company” as an irresponsible company who does not enjoy trust. By the way the Municipality refuses categorically to provide the community residents with the copy of the agreement on transferring the water supply network reasoning that it is a “non-standard” agreement. However, the legislation does not provide for such a legal term which gives grounds for us to speak about the availability of corruption risks.
4. To conclude with I should note, that we have been regularly engaged in the issues related to the water supply network from the very beginning by conducting petition, by addressing various requests and complaints to the head of the community and the company, by participating in the discussions on the present sector. All the statements presented from our side are well documented and can be provided both to donor organizations and to law enforcement agencies.
We can reasonably say that ADB’s partner organization fails to carry out its obligations with respect to the Asian Development Bank and to the issue of Kapan water supply.
You can find attached certain documents proving the verity of the raised issues: our correspondences with the Municipality of Kapan and “Armenian Water and Sewerage Company” CJSC, as well as the data on the drinking water quality provided by respective state authorities. In order to acquire more comprehensive picture of the project violations, we recommend you once again to have a visit to Kapan in order to meet with the representatives of the local civil society.
Best regards,
Arshavir Khalapyan
President of “Regional Monitoring Institute” NGO.”
December 23, 2015 at 17:14