Keep Armenian Transport Minister Away from North-South Road Project: Opinion

It is difficult to say how much money has disappeared over the course of building the North-South Road Corridor, said Hetq Editor-in-Chief Edik Baghdasaryan in a video broadcast of Epress.am's Week in Review program [in Armenian only]. Baghdasaryan is currently working on an article about the highway, which will be published soon. The total cost of the project is $954 million, and according to Baghdasaryan, it will be impossible to carry out the project.

"I spoke to various experts, and all say that it's impossible to build the road because the project, it seems, is a rough draft. 

"It's difficult to say how much money has disappeared, but the three sections which should've been built in the first stage — Yerevan-Ararat, Yerevan-Ashtarak, and Ashtarak-Talin — the largest of which is Ashtarak-Talin, and which, I think, is the most expensive ($180), these roads don't exist. These three sections should've been completed by now. On the Ashtarak-Talin section, it can be said, only 2% of the work is completed. 

"Even before starting the work, the company [that won the tender] was given a $31 million advance. We don’t yet know how that happened. That is to say, they hadn’t yet done anything, and $31 million was allocated [to them]," he said.

Baghdasaryan also drew attention to several risks inherent in the project: "The danger is that if the quality of the cement is reduced by 1%, it can shorten the life [of the road] by 10 years. These roads are designed [to last] for 30–40 years. That is, imagine, [because of] some official's fault, we will reduce the life of our roads by 10 years. 

"I think, this team needs to dissolve, and a new team gathered. [RA Minister of Transport and Communications Gagik] Beglaryan [pictured] should be kept away from this transaction; you can't give this much money to Beglaryan and say, 'Oversee it.' How can you tell the transport minister, you have to oversee this billion dollars to build a road?," he said. 

According to Baghdasaryan, if the current team works on building the roads, it won't happen.