{"id":254395,"date":"2014-06-09T20:14:20","date_gmt":"2014-06-09T16:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=254395"},"modified":"2014-06-09T20:15:45","modified_gmt":"2014-06-09T16:15:45","slug":"giving-the-green-light-to-kickbacks-mps-unhappy-with-loans-for-north-south-road-construction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2014\/06\/09\/giving-the-green-light-to-kickbacks-mps-unhappy-with-loans-for-north-south-road-construction.html","title":{"rendered":"Giving the Green Light to Kickbacks: MPs Unhappy with Loans for North-South Road Construction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">The RA Ministry of Transportation and Communications has approached the National Assembly with a proposal for a new loan to continue construction of the North-South Road Corridor. The two loan amounts requested are $100 million and $60 million, planned to be spent on constructing the Ararat-Talin and Talin-Lanjik sections of the road.&nbsp;<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tDuring discussion of the issue in parliament today, MPs talked about reports by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/en\/2014\/06\/05\/where-is-the-954-million-allocated-for-construction-of-north-south-highway.html\"><span style=\"color:#0000CD;\"><strong>non-governmental organizations<\/strong><\/span><\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/en\/2014\/06\/09\/keep-armenian-transport-minister-away-from-north-south-road-project-opinion.html\"><span style=\"color:#0000CD;\"><strong>the media<\/strong><\/span><\/a> that demonstrate serious doubts about the use of the previous loans.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tRA Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Artur Arakelyan denied reports that Armenia had to pay a fine of $300,000 for not completing the program on time. But he acknowledged that there are shortcomings in terms of quality in the Artashat-Ararat road. According to him, the ministry won&#39;t pay the construction company until the shortcomings are addressed.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tProsperous Armenia &nbsp;Party (BHK) MP Stepan Margaryan and Armenian National Congress (HAK) MP Hrant Bagratyan believed that reconstruction of the Artashat-Yerevan road was not an absolute priority, as it was already in good condition. According to Margaryan, the Gyumri-Bavra road is impassable, so it should&#39;ve been repaired first.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tBagratyan, in turn, said he would first repair the Noyemberyan, Goris-Kapan, and Ijevan-Berd roads. According to him, Armenia is one of the leading countries in the world in number of paved roads per capita. &nbsp;The same high rate exists in terms of the level of gasification, he said, adding, however, that there are villages where the system has been installed, but they don&#39;t consume gas.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t&quot;If we put as much money into agriculture, villages would&#39;ve blossomed by now,&quot; he said. According to him, before granting such loans in general, he said, a test must be conducted, which wasn&#39;t done.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tRepublican Party of Armenia MPs defended the loan program. MP Khosrov Harutyunyan said the country is known for its roads; thus, investments cannot be considered ineffective.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tHAK MP Nikol Pashinyan, in turn, said he is voting against all loan programs, as voting in favor means giving a green light to abuse, kickbacks, and embezzlement.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<strong><em>Photo credit: <a href=\"http:\/\/mtc.am\/?lang=3&amp;page_id=1\"><span style=\"color:#0000CD;\">RA Ministry of Transportation and Communications<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The RA Ministry of Transportation and Communications has approached the National Assembly with a proposal for a new loan to continue construction of&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":254389,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[19877,52953,56062,35237],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254395"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}