Armenian opposition says millions spent on COP-17

Lawmakers from the opposition "Strong Armenia" party have spoken out about the colossal and unjustified spending by Armenia's authorities on hosting the COP-17 conference.

As lawmaker Hasmik Yengoyan said at a press conference, often even the government cannot explain how much in total it plans to spend on the event. Since it was not possible to obtain information about the spending from officials, Yengoyan decided to calculate individual expenditure items herself.

For example, the company "Meridian Holding," in whose building the conference will be held, alone was allocated 10.8 billion drams (about $30 million), and initially a far smaller sum had been planned, after which, for unclear reasons, additional money was allocated from state funds. In addition, all the contracts lack technical parameters, and it is impossible to examine and understand how objective the planned expenses are.

Her faction colleague, Liana Manukyan, drew attention to the $52,000 allocated for "unforeseen expenses," ironically suggesting that it refers to wages for workers who are supposed to "unload lanyards for badges." Another representative of the opposition faction, Lena Matevosyan, noted that according to their own calculations, in one of the contracts about $233,000 could have been saved out of the $825,000 allocated.

Matevosyan also drew attention to the fact that the cabinet allocated more than $5 million to the company "Doping Space" for holding the event. This company is known for having been supposed to organize a concert by rapper Snoop Dogg in Yerevan, but the concert never took place. The opposition lawmakers intend to appeal to law enforcement agencies over the alleged unjustified expenses.

Source: Sputnik Armenia