The RA Ministries of Agriculture and Nature Protection used 4 mln AMD (about 8370 USD) and 4.3 mln AMD (about 8900 USD) correspondingly from the State Budget for the purchases of the air tickets for foreign business trips from one person. In our previous publication we had referred to the purchases of the air tickets for foreign business trips from one person of the RA Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Education and Science.
The RA Minister of Agriculture Aramayis Grigoryan, in the period of 4-7 June was in Geneva. According to the RA Prime Minister’s decision 519-A of 6 June 2014, Aramayis Grigoryan and the Deputy Minister of Energy and Nature Resources Areg Galstyan were on a business trip to Switzerland to participate in the 6th meeting of the UN Economic Commission for Europe on “United Nations Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context” (Espoo Convention).
The business class air tickets for the business trip of the ministers Yerevan-Geneva, Geneva -Yerevan were purchased from “Armenia-Travle+M” Company for 745.000 AMD 
On 22-27 September, Aramayis Grigoryan was in New York for participation in the meeting of the ministers on “Climate Week” in the framework of the International Climate Change Summit organized by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon
The contract for the purchase of the air tickets was signed with “Armenia-Travle+M” Company, and 1mln 850 ths. AMD was paid for the business class travel Yerevan-New York, New York-Yerevan.
On 6-8 October the minister left for Minsk to participate in the first meeting of the CIS Interstate Environmental Council. Again the contract for the purchase of the air tickets was signed with “Armenia-Travle+M” Company, and 640 ths. AMD was paid for the business class travel Yerevan-Minsk-Yerevan. In this case the purchase contract was signed on 8 October, the last day of the Business trip.
During the same period, 23-25 October, Deputy Minister of Agriculture Grisha Baghiryan, left for Minsk with the delegation as well. The cost of his economy class tickets for both directions (Yerevan-Minsk-Yerevan) was 221.000AMD. The mere comparison shows that the business class trip in the same direction was 3 times more expensive.
The Ministry of Agriculture has submitted only invoices on the purchase of tickets from one person. However, the invoices do not indicate or list the class type of the purchased tickets.
On 22-25 April 2014, Sergo Karapetyan, then Acting Minister of Agriculture and Andranik Petrosyan, Head of the External Affairs Department left for France. According to the RA Prime Minister’s Decision 362-A of 29 April 2014, the purpose of their trip was the discussion of specific areas of agriculture in the framework of Armenian-French cooperation.
The air tickets for the business trip Yerevan-Paris-Roma-Yerevan were purchased from “Armenia-Travle+M” Company. The total cost of the tickets was 962.424 AMD. Although there is no clear indication, however according to the information of the internet booking sites, we can see that the tickets for two persons in these directions by economy class are at least half the price of the mentioned above cost.
According to the RA Prime Minister’s Decision 1114-A of 29 November 2014, on 19-21 November, Minister Sergo Karapetyan and the Deputy Minister Armen Harutyunyan were on a business trip t Roma to Participate in Second International Conference on Nutrition organized by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN World Health Organization.
Two tickets for the directions Yerevan-Moscow-Roma, Roma-Moscow-Yerevan were purchased from “Imperia Travel” Company for the cost of 490ths.AMD. In this case we can assume that both tickets were of economy class.
P.S. We will continuously present the costs of the business trips made by the ministries.
To be continued.
Astghik Karapetyan
Also See: The Ministers travel by Business Class, others by Economy Class
