The Anti-Corruption Committee did not find any problem in the waste of governmental funds

In 2022, the Police committed a number of significant violations in the organization of procurement, as well as in the process of acceptance of goods, as a result of which the state spent additional funds, and other participants in the procurement process did not have the opportunity to win the tenders due to not meeting the tender requirements.

In particular, the weight of the RAV-4 vehicles procured by the Police in 2022 was more than 70 kg less than the weight specified in the purchase order, but this did not prevent Toyota Yerevan from being recognized as the winner. Meanwhile, the tender committee rejected the application of “Sky Motors” company, because the weight of the offered car was less than the weight required in the invitation to tender.

Besides, Toyota Yerevan LLC did not provide full information in the declaration regarding the real beneficiaries, did not present the true picture (information on the owner of only 10% of the shares was provided), but this circumstance was ignored by the tender committee. As a result, the content of the given document was not properly examined by the evaluation committee, the information provided was not verified. If the information provided had been found to be false, the application of this participant would have been rejected.

In the invitation to tender, it was stipulated that the engines of both sedans and SUVs should not have additives (TURBO, KOMPRESSOR, GDI, etc.). However, the delivered vehicles did not actually meet the specifications, as the A25A-FKS engines of the 140 delivered vehicles have a Toyota D-4S fuel injection system, with a high-pressure fuel pump with gasoline direct injection (GDI).

By the way, only one participant applied, which gives us ground to assume that the restrictions on engine additives, vehicle weight and other restrictions required by the invitation to tender were an obstacle for other suppliers to apply.

Building on the topic of the partnership between the Police and “Toyota Yerevan”, we should also add that in 2022, two more contracts were signed for the purpose of equipping the Patrol Service vehicles with bars.

The first contract provided for the furnishing of 140 cars with a total area of 700 m² (the cost of 1 m² is AMD 31 thousand), and the second contract was for the furnishing of 175 cars with a total  area of 1102.5 m² (the cost of 1 m² is already AMD 54 thousand).

In the case of the first contract, it was found that the actual dimensions (area) of the bars installed in the car salons do not exceed 399m², but “Toyota Yerevan” LLC submitted an invoice to the Police for 700m² of installed bars, which was paid in full by the latter. The difference between the actual work done and the volume of work presented in the documents was around 301m². However, the police officials overlooked this fact. As a result, excess amount of more than 9.3 million AMD was paid to the company from the state budget.

In the second case, bars with a total area of 577.5 m² were actually installed, but “Toyota Yerevan” LLC submitted to the Police an invoice for 1102.5 m², which was again paid in full by the latter. The difference between the actual work done and the volume of work presented in the documents was around 525m², meaning that an excess amount of 28.4 million AMD was paid from the state budget.

In other words, with these two contracts alone, the Police overpaid the company about 37.7 million AMD.

In addition, the Police procured speed cameras installed in police vehicles for more than 145 million AMD from the “SOS Systems” company. The cameras had to have the capacity to recognize license plates of cars moving in the same lane at a speed of 300 km/h.

However, it turned out that the cameras installed in the Patrol Service vehicles of Lori and Shirak provinces can recognize the license plates of vehicles driving at a maximum speed of 220-230 km/h (110-115 km/h when moving in the opposite lane), which is less than the technical specification of the contract by about 70 km/h.

These were the findings of the Audit Chamber regarding the Police procurement in 2022.

The Fact Investigation Platform decided to explore the fate of these findings, reveal who were the culprits of the abuses that occurred in the procurement process and what measures of liability were applied against them.

In response to our inquiry, the Police informed that the materials of the official investigation conducted by the Internal Security Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Armenia were sent to the Anti-Corruption Committee, and the case relating to the bars was sent to the Investigative Committee.

In November last year, the Anti-Corruption Committee decided to terminate the proceedings, as it did not identify any act covered by the Criminal Code. And the case sent to the Investigative Committee is still in the investigation stage.

We tried to find out on what basis the proceedings were terminated, but the Anti-Corruption Committee refused to provide the termination decisions. They noted that these violations were investigated, but no issues were detected, therefore, a decision was made to terminate the proceedings.

Thus, it turns out that as a result of significant violations in the procurement process, the state suffered a significant damage, other participants were prevented from participating in the tender, goods that did not comply with the requirements set out in the invitation to tender were purchased, but the Anti-Corruption Committee did not find any problem there and terminated the proceedings.

Vahe Ghukasyan