On 18 November 2016, the RA Ministry of Economic Development and Investments (former Ministry of Economy) bought 1 air conditioner, which is rather expensive and there is no justification for this procurement.
Thus, Iravaban.net learned from the procurement documents that the Ministry paid about 2 million AMD to Consel LTD for the air-conditioner of MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC MS-GF80VA/MU-GF80VA model. Moreover, price estimate for the good was 3 million AMD.
There was no air conditioner of this model in the store of Consel LTD on Sayat Nova Street. At the same time there were also no so expensive air-conditioners in the store. The most expensive was worth around 1.4 million AMD.
We failed to find air-conditioners of this model in other shops in Armenia to compare the prices as well. However, there are such devices in the Russian market and, surprisingly, the price difference is huge. For example in cityclimat.ru store it is sold for 86.000 rubles, which is about 650.000AMD. But if we calculate the installation and service, the price is 98.690 rubles (740.000 AMD). In other words, even in case of additional services the price does not exceed 1 million AMD. The same prices were observed in other Russian stores: rusklimat.ru, aventa96.ru, entero.ru (see the photo). It is not clear how can almost three times more expensive prices be explained.
The tender announcement for the procurement is even more interesting, as the required product specification clearly states the model of the air-conditioner and its specifications. This notably constricts the scope of submitting bids for the tender in the price/quality context. Moreover, the need for other air conditioners is stated in the announcement as well, and again clearly specify the models and features of Mitsubishi և Carrier Company’s products.
And coincidentally, it appears that “Consel” Company is the official representative of Mitsubishi Electric and Toshiba & Carrier Companies in Armenia. Therefore, we can claim that the announcement of tender for the procurment, directs the purchase just from this company.
Astghik Karapetyan
