Temporarily suspended SOS chief D. Sanasaryan expects vindication

YEREVAN, APRIL 30, ARMENPRESS. Temporarily suspended Director of the State Oversight Service Davit Sanasaryan convened a news conference today, April 30th, to speak about the criminal charges against him.

He said he is convinced that sooner or later the charges against him will be dropped.

“As you know, the criminal case was filed in the prosecution regarding the procurement of hemodialysis items. I’ve told you since the beginning that our goal was solely to bring the state procurement in conformity with the Law on Procurement, in this case the procurement of hemodialysis devices by medical centers. I can say that the prosecution’s indictment is mostly based on the notification that we have given. As a reminder, when the first article was published with the strange headline “Business is being snatched with participation of Davit Sanasaryan at the State Oversight Service, this is what it was about. Meaning we had announced that such problem exists. We were saying, and the prosecution stated, that the tender for procuring the hemodialysis devices was carried out with violations of several articles of the Law on Procurement. We say they are selling it to the state with doubled prices, they are over-profiting. We were saying that if a competition were to happen then naturally other participants would’ve participated and the state would spend less than it had earlier”, Sanasaryan said.

According to Sanasaryan, their actions angered the company that supplies the devices to the medical centers.

“They didn’t like this, in their words this is “snatching a business”, because their monopoly at the medical center was eliminated and I am sure that it will continue getting eliminated. Regardless of where the case related to me will end up going, I am sure that we already have serious results”, he said.

He also denied rumors that the case has been caused by his “inexperience”.

He said the criminal investigation into the procurement of the devices speaks about the very fact that he has done his job correctly.

Sanasaryan is indicted since April 18th on charges of abuse of power. He is on bail, banned from leaving the country amid an investigation. His duties as Director of the State Oversight Service are temporarily suspended.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan