The RA Central Electoral Commission (CEC) already prepares for the referendum of constitutional changes, which will be held on 6 December this year. The disappearing ink and the stamp pads are already bought for marking in the voter’s passport.
On October 12, CEC signed a purchase and sale contract with Baleno Sustainable Global Development Company registered in London, for the purchase of 2500 containers with 100 ml of ink and the same quantity of stamp pads. The cost of the contract is 21 million 373 thousand AMD or about 45 thousand USD.
The legal justification of the contract is the Government’s Decision 663-N, dated June 18. Clause 1 of the decision provides: “To allocate 27.289.860 AMD to CEC in the first half of 2015, from the reserve fund of the Government in compliance to the annex 1, for financing the purchase of special disappearing material which disappears 12 hours after stamping the identification documents.
We learn from the decision’s annex that 21 million 373 thousand of the allocated sum was allocated for stationary and clothing, 5 million 351 thousand for other taxes and 556 thousand for other costs. And as the purchase must be exported from abroad it is supposed that 5 million 351 thousand AMD is allocated for the payment of taxes, customs and other taxes.
It turns out that on 12 December 2012, the CEC bought the same amount of ink and stamp pads for the same capacity and the same criteria also by going ahead the presidential elections, which were held on 18 February 2013.
2300 containers of ink and the same amount of stamp pads were bought for 26300 AMD in 2012. We learn from Central Bank’s archival data that on the date of signing the contract the exchange rate of 1 USD was 406.5 AMD. And so 10.7 million AMD was paid.
But in 2012, the purchased goods were less by 200 unites. Thus, we see that 11,6 million AMD must be paid for the purchase of 2500 unites.
Actually, after about 3 years this same good was bought twice as expensive, whereas the description of the purchased goods is the same for 2012 and 2015.
Astghik Karapetyan
