Epress.am News from Armenia
Many reduce corruption to the normal phenomenon of bribery of state officials, which in this or that way is particular to all, including the most developed and law-abiding countries. However, bribery since it is partial and limited only by the frame of obscene officials, comprises merely one scale of state corruption, and not the most essential part at that. The real evil is state-scale corruption, which is much more comprehensive and is a systematized concept, this is how first president of the Republic of Armenia, Armenian National Congress (HAK) leader Levon Ter-Petrossian began his speech today.
“Armenia’s deliberately modified economic system is fully adapted to corruption; that is, to the country’s ruthless plundering requirements. It has no connection to either socialism or feudalism, neither to nominally proclaimed capitalism nor liberalism. Liberal economy in our country is just fiction, since in the economic arena everything is regulated not by market relations, but power seized by the will of the junta and orders, rather, through the rules and concepts of the criminal world,” he said.
Petrossian noted that usually, the most striking expression of corruption is considered the shadow economy, which for different reasons remains outside government control.
“However, I dare to say that in Armenia in reality there is no shadow economy. Our government is so organized and vigilant that nothing escapes their control and without their permission, no shadow exists, which means all manifestations of criminal economic activity are directed and managed from one center. Consequently, it’s not that this is a shadow economy, but a widespread pillage or state racket, the reason why in Armenia there are two budgets: one officially announced; the other, found in the authorities’ pockets, which is incomparably greater than the first. Accordingly, if more than half [of the funds] weren’t stolen from the real budget, our country’s budget today should have been not $2.5 [billion] but at least $5-6 billion. This fact might seem abstract to you. Thus, to picture what that means, perhaps it’s necessary to make it more tangible. That basically means that your salaries and pensions today should have been at least twice as high. That is, the average salary, instead of $283 dollars should have been $566, that who received 50,000 dram should have received 100,000 [dram]; 100,000 receiver, 200,000; and the 200,000 receiver, 400,000. More specifically, from each of you, every month they steal one [monthly] salary or one pension payment,” he said.