There is a conflict of interests in the Anti-Corruption Council, insists the project manager of Eurasia Partnership Foundation Mikayel Hovhannisyan. A number of representatives from state bodies will be included in this Council, particularly the RA Prime Minister, the Minister of Finances, Prosecutor General, and heads of local self governments.
Referring to this circumstances the specialist said: “We cannot give a positive appraisal to the established goals of the Council and opportunities to realizing them, because it is impossible to imagine a situation where the control is realized by a body, whose Chief staff includes those who are the heads of potentially controlled bodies. Here we face a conflict of interests and on this occasion the effectiveness is under doubt. This means that if the Anti-Corruption Council aims to control the corruption in the state bodies and the Council included the immediate heads of state bodies, the fight will have an imitative character”.
Speaking about the involvement of the representatives of SCOs, Mr. Hovhannisyan mentioned “From this point of view, the involvement of NGOs will produce a problem, independent from the number and type of the organizations. The problem is, that the involvement in the staff of unreasonable Council will not give any result. It is a great harm if you know that this Council will not function effective, but you legitimate it by your presence as a SCO providing it an opportunity to say that it is working without really doing it” the Project Manager of Eurasia Partnership Foundation expressed his opinion.
To the question what was the objective to create a council which will not function in substance, the specialist answered, “Because it is necessary. It has always been considered necessary in such international processes which deal with corruption, has always been essential to create a specialized and targeted body, which will fight against corruption. This has repeatedly been fixed as a demand, a mission and advice in different international reports and documents. Armenia has already failed to fulfill this demand in timely manner with a reasoning that it is elaborating a strategy, however it has been created eventually, because of the demand” Mr. Hovhannisyan concluded.
