The Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Armenia received from the RA State Supervision Service the results of the monitoring of the funds allocated to the non-governmental organization from the state budget of the Republic of Armenia for 2017-2018, as well as copies of the attached documents, which have been the subject of an action by the Prosecutor’s Office to file a lawsuit for the protection of state interests. In order to ensure the completeness of the study, the necessary documents were requested and received from the RA State Revenue Committee.

The Prosecutor General’s Office informs.

As a result, it was found out that on the basis of grant agreements signed between the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Armenia and N NGO on 14 February, 2017 and 2 February, 2018, “Support to the Classroom” educational information program (dasaran.am) 180 million AMD was allocated to the organization. The latter has undertaken the obligation to use the financial means for the purposes and in the amounts defined by the contracts.

A study of the RA SRC databases and other sources revealed that within the framework of the grant program, the NGO purchased services from a commercial company in 2017-2018. The value of the latter was compared with the data on salaries and benefits calculated by the company during the same period. It was also taken into account that the resources of the NGO were sufficient to carry out the work presented as services provided by the company. Based on the above, the monitoring carried out by the RA SSS revealed that the mentioned NGO had obtained invalid documents from the commercial company.

The study also received data that in order to implement the event, the RA state budget provided significantly more funds than the real needs demanded.

According to the preliminary calculations made by the RA State Revenue Committee on the basis of the preliminary data recorded in the monitoring results, in case of writing off or receiving invalid documents, the actual amount deviated from the amount mentioned in the documents certifying the actual execution of the transaction, which in this case is about 138.5 million AMD, is subject to collection as a fine.

The fact that the NGO acquired invalid documents indicates a breach of the requirements set by the grant agreements, that is, the failure to use the funds provided for financial purposes for the above-mentioned purposes and possible misuse by an employee (s) of the organization.

Taking into account that the monitoring carried out by the RA SSS and the RA Prosecutor General’s Office, obtained factual data on the apparent characteristics of large-scale embezzlement by the NGO employees by abuse of official position, from trusted assets, in connection with which it is necessary to conduct a full, comprehensive and objective examination. A criminal case has been initiated in the Department of State Interests Protection of the RA General Prosecutor’s Office under Article 179, Part 3 (1) of the RA Criminal Code.

The preliminary investigation of the criminal case has been assigned to the RA Investigative Committee.