On 27 November 2015, the “Armenian Young Lawyers Association” NGO organized an Anti-Corruption event “Corruption Risks in Social Sphere in Syunik Marz” for the CSOs of Syunik marz of the RA, in the framework of the EU funded “Multi-Faceted Anti-Corruption Promotion Project.” The event took place in the AYLA Syunik Branch Office.

Miss Ani Asatryan, the Regional Coordinator/Expert of “Multi-Faceted Anti-Corruption Promotion Project” welcomed the participants and introduced the report on “Corruption Risks in Social Sphere in Syunik Marz.”

Further, Mr. Hrayr Khachatryan, Coordinator of the Day Care Center of “Mission Armenia” benevolent NGO, member of the CSOs group of Syunik marz of CSOs’ Anti-Corruption Coalition held a report on the “Activities of CSOs group of Syunik marz of CSOs’ Anti-Corruption Coalition aimed to curb Corruption Risks in Social Sphere in Syunik Marz.”

He noted that there are many problems in this area, which is largely due to the failure by the responsible bodies to fulfill their duties with due diligence, which creates artificial obstacles for citizens to realize their rights. In this aspect he also noted that citizens do not always want and will to protect their legitimate interests, as they prefer the shortest illegal way to achieve the result.

According to Hrayr Khachatryan, The reason for this may be considered the existence of national mentality and stereotypes that it is necessary to express gratitude to the official for doing a relevant work, by offerings a reward (a thanksgiving), which in itself is corruption.

Mr. Artur Ghazaryan, President of the “Workers’ Rights Protection Association” NG said that in order to regulate the issues and to reduce corruption in the sphere it is necessary to start from raising citizens’ awareness, which may be achieved in case of the presence of appropriate human resources. That is, to create a group of trained volunteers who will visit the homes of the citizens and in addition to distribution of awareness leaflets also be able to answer to the questions of their concern in places.

Miss Ani Asatryan, the Regional Coordinator of the AYLA Syunik Anti-Corruption Office said that AYLA together with the volunteers of the organization had carried out such campaigns repeatedly.

All suggestions and recommendations of the CSOs and mass media made during the public discussion will be summarized and submitted to the AYLA, which in its turn will submit those to the RA Ministry of Justice.

Iravaban.net