Armenian Nuclear Plant Employees Say Boss Embezzling Funds Earmarked for Nuclear Safety

Several employees at the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant (also known as the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant) sent an open letter to the presidential staff, the prime minister, the RA Ministry of Energy, the plant management, the RA Ministry of Economy, the RA Ministry of Finance, the RA Control Chamber, head of Russia’s Rosatom Nuclear Energy State Corporation Sergei Kirienko, and European branches of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In the letter, the employees point to the “unhealthy, shallow and unjust atmosphere” that prevails in the nuclear energy plant.

 

“The nuclear power plant’s chief engineer, Movses Vardanyan, abusing his official position and without considering employee’s professional skills or the need to ensure the plant’s safety, hires and offers positions arbitrarily. Breaking the rules, he has hired his novice and having [only] a bachelor’s degree son-in-law Hayk Galstyan, who in every corner tells everyone that his ‘powerful’ father-in-law will soon appoint him to a position that is occupied by our professionals who have many years of experience and that soon our current director, Mr. Markosyan, will be laid off as an unworthy and uneducated professional and his father-in-law, Movses Vardanyan, will be appointed [in this position] instead,” reads the letter.

 

The disgruntled employees further assert that Vardanyan has embezzled the funds received for ensuring the plant’s safety and unjustly has distributed it to his son-in-law and their other relatives.

 

“Please let go the crude, thieving Movses Vardanyan and those like him, who are the reason for the unhealthy atmosphere in the strategically important nuclear power plant,” write the employees.

 

Note, the Metsamor NPP is the only one in the South Caucasus. Just a half-hour drive (30 km) from the Armenian capital, the Soviet-era nuclear power plant began operations in 1980 but closed in March 1989 following the Spitak earthquake. It was reopened in 1993 and operational since November 1995, following the energy crisis in the country. The Armenian nuclear power plant will cease operations by 2016. There are plans to construct a new power plant to replace Metsamor.