The four days of the April war clearly showed two circumstances. Karen Zadoyan, President of the Armenian Lawyers Association and Coordinator of CSOs’ Anti-Corruption Coalition Secretariat said today at the Anti-Corruption Event “Corruption Risks in Customs Sphere” which took place today in Gyumri.

First, according to him, this war has shown that our nation is able to unite to confront the enemy. Our new generation of heroic. The second important factor was also raised: “It was corruption, its visibility and understandability not only for the government but also for the people. Corruption has always been around, but it never appeared as blood. This appeared clearly during the April war, that this phenomenon definitely has deeply been rooted in the society,” Mr. Zadoyan mentioned.

What should be done? According to Mr. Zadoyan, first it is necessary to raise the public awareness and the citizens should raise the issues. And the second the state must develop a strategy.

In Karen Zadoyan’s opinion, we have not had significant achievements as a result of the previous two anti-corruption strategies. “Now there is a new strategy and action plan, as well as 4 target sectors. We pay serious attention to the corruption risks in the sector. This process began last year in December, when the representatives of business and civil society gathered in one place and launched discussions. There are corruption risks and problems in the customs sphere. It is very important that the government shows the will to act, and the evidence of that in today’s meeting, where the representatives of the sphere are present and shall try to discuss with us the raised issues. Later, after mapping of the problems, we shall offer to solve those in joint working formats,” he said.

The Anti-Corruption Event was organized in the scope of the “Multi-Faceted Anti-Corruption Promotion” Project with the financial support of the European Union and co-financed by the OSCE Yerevan Office.

Iravaban.net