On 10 February this year, the Ministry of Defense signed a contract with “A & V Tours” Company on receiving representational, ceremonial services. The contract price comprised 236 million 792 thousand AMD (more than half a million USD).
The Ministry of Defense signed a contract with this company for such services on 7 February, 2014 as well. The contract price comprised 199 million 424.5 thousand AMD.
We learn from the purchase documents that the amount was paid from the state budget and the deadline for the performance of services is the end of the year. The services include booking of hotel services, food, transportation both in Armenia and outside Armenia, providing services for guests with representational purposes arriving to Armenia (organization of conferences, hall providing, coffee breaks, translations, cultural events, information packages and other services of the ceremonial nature) if necessary, providing similar services abroad.
On this purchase, in response to iravaban.net’s request, the Defense Ministry informed: “For the above mentioned services the planned events/actions of partner countries’ Defense Ministries (the latter are of official and considered to be confidential information and they are not subject to disclosure) and the combination of the normative criteria of RA Government 1036 decision accepted on 10September, 2009 are of utmost importance.”
The Ministry directly points out in the reply: Let us not reveal how and on whom we spend nearly half a million USD, while the information on procurement is public. At the same time we do not exclude that some costs can be truly kept confidential.
Astghik Karapetyan
