Epress.am News from Armenia
On September 6, a number of Yerevan residents and journalists visited Sanitek, the company in charge of Yerevan’s domestic waste disposal. The reason for the visit was failure by the company to comply with its own duties. The visitor-protestors state that it is no longer possible to stand the stench in Yerevan streets. One of the protestors brought along baby diapers.
Kristina Hovhannisyan, assistant to Sanitek’s CEO, kept on repeating that the visit was not part of their scheduled programs, the CEO was not in office and all questions would be answered during a press conference to be held next week.
To the remark of the journalists that the CEO is constantly absent and it is normally impossible to get his views, Hovhannisyan reacted: “He is a busy man, he can’t be in the office all the time.”
While at Sanitek’s office, the visitor-protestors noticed that there are flies all around at the office. “Is this ok for you that flies bother you too?” asked one of the journalists. “Flies are no news for Yerevan, I see nothing strange there. There is a year there are flies, another year there are none. I’m not a specialist in this sphere.”
The visitors insisted that an authorized person approach them and answer the questions of concern to them. It turned out that it was only the CEO that would like to meet the journalists, he, however, was not in the office.
“You keep on shrugging our questions off,” said one of the participants of the protest.
The journalists reminded that Sanitek was fined several million drams a few months ago for failure to comply with their duties, and promised that it would improve its performance. However, now Yerevan residents conclude that the fine was not effective. In response, Hovhannisyan stated that they do their daily duties, however denied the assumptions that the issues of waste disposal could be connected to Taron Margaryan’s resignation. Waste disposal became an issue right after Taron Margaryan resigned.
“We’ve already stated that we had a similar problem in the past, we have a technical issue now. The CEO will answer all your questions.” It was also impossible to find out what the CEO was busy with, at the same time the whole company fails to do its most important function.
Hovhannisyan herself lives in Shengavit district of Yerevan, where according to her, everything is fine: “It’s all fine on my street.”
— How come, because you’re a Sanitek employee?
— Nobody knows where I live, I just said this now.
The fact that the visit was not prearranged did not allow for the answers to be properly answered, the CEO assistant kept on reminding.
The protesters had brought along bags of waste. Arousik Mkrtchyan, an active citizen living in downtown Yerevan stated that the situation on Yerevan’s street could lead to a pandemic. “The company is responsible, in fact, it is in a state of omission, it fails to do its job. Today they gave no answer to so many journalists and Yerevan residents. The CEO was well aware that we’re coming today. They just have ready-made texts that the CEO had appointments.
Before the new tender, you should mobilize all your resources, because this is a security issue already. The flies have attacked you too at your office, while they have attacked us all around the city.”
The Yerevan resident declared that if the issue remains unresolved, protests will continue. There are large groups of people who will also join us, stated Mkrtchyan. She also presented the contents of the waste bag she had brought with herself: “Baby diapers, for example, these would not have been removed from our building backyard, that’s why I’ve brought them here.”
The members of the Facebook event of this protest intend to bring their waste bags from various districts of Yerevan to Sanitek’s office all day long.