Voting on a constitutional project, as well as Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s sensational statement about his successor, are in the focus of the Armenian mass media. Newspapers are commenting on the sale of Electric Networks of Armenia, the imminent crisis of mining companies in the country, the results of the rating of global competitiveness, as well as a sharp decline in private money transfers to Armenia.
The Armenian mass media is focused on Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s sensational statement about the future leader of the country, which shocked the whole Armenian establishment. According to the Irates de facto, Serzh Sargsyan made the following statement in the USA: ‘‘I can predict who will be the next leader of Armenia, however, I am wary that by declaring it, he will have days of hell.’’ The statement shocked the entire political elite. Everybody looks at each other suspiciously: ‘’Maybe you will become the leader?’’ As a powerful decree ‘’not to accuse each other’’ was received from 26 Baghramyan Street, the leadership cannot understand "who the victim is." In the end, they examined the candidacy of Edward Nalbandian after Seyran Ohanian and Gagik Harutyunyan,’’ the newspaper reports.
The 168 Zham, assessing the results of the voting on the draft of the new Constitution of Armenia, reported: "A text which promises a good future is one thing, but its implementation is quite another thing. The current Constitution has numerous shortcomings, however, the realization is not so bad. Its violation to be more precise. Now we have a contradiction with a good law. In this case with the Constitution and the implementation of the law."
The Zhamanak reports: "Armenia is immersed in the constitutional process in a situation where it has more obvious, much more urgent and serious challenges."
The Chorrord Ishkhanutyun writes: "Concentrating all resources, Serzh Sargsyan changes the constitution, instead of restoring public confidence in one of the most important infrastructures of the country. Then he sells an offshore company instead of establishing an atmosphere of inter-solidarity, arresting young people spreading leaflets. Instead of increasing the patriotic spirit, they beat up veterans. Only the number of cameras and speedometers on the roads keep on increasing," the author writes.
The Hraparak says: "The day after the end of voting on the constitutional draft, while leaving the National Assembly, our reporter accidentally met with former speaker of the Armenian parliament Tigran Torosyan, who hasn’t been seen or heard from for a long time.
"And how would you vote?’’ the journalist asked Torosyan. The former speaker of the National Assembly was in a hurry, but he sighed deeply and said: "I do not want to discuss what doesn’t exist." He also added that he is familiar with the new draft of the constitution. So it is likely that he will express his opinion soon,’’ the newspaper reports.
The Chorrord Ishkhanutyun writes: "What happened with the front 'No'? Indeed this situation shows that the government understands that a wave of public discontent can change their planned course of the process during a short period of time. The process of constitutional amendments has come to an end in the National Assembly, and a new stage of the process was proclaimed."
The Zhoghovurd: "Taking into account the aggression of the police against members of the movement 'No', we can assume that a political decision to hold a referendum at any cost has already been made, as well as who will be against and have problems with security forces."
‘‘The front 'No' doesn’t exist,’’ said a press secretary of the radical opposition initiative 'Founding Parliament', Varuzhan Avetisyan, in an interview with a correspondent of the Haykakan Zhamanak, commenting on the absence of the leaders of the Armenian National Congress, the Heritage party and Avetisyan in particular at the ongoing street protests: "We need to be frank and admit that the front 'No' doesn’t exist. There is only an appropriate statement of its creation, and the powers that represent it.There is no necessity to speak about others,’’ he said.
"Life has stopped in the JSC Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA). They are waiting for completion of the process of the sale with bated breath. According to our information, ENA gave citizens, who have applied for electricity, a reply that it is impossible now,’’ the Hraparak reports.
"You can write a complaint, and we will be fined, but we won’t do this. You’d better write an application that you wish to transfer electricity in two weeks." Even the former director of ENA, Inter RAO, doesn’t want to spend money. He believes that the new leadership should do this," the newspaper reports.
The Zhamanak writes: "In May of the current year, the brother of the owner of the group of companies Tashir, Samvel Karapetyan, a member of the National Assembly of Armenia Karen Karapetyan noted that "they cannot negotiate buying ENA, or any similar intentions. "We already know that Samvel Karapetyan’s company bought JSC Electric Networks of Armenia, so we asked Karen Karapetyan why he denied such a possibility at the beginning."
‘‘To put it mildly, I don’t like this deal today from the viewpoint of the business perspective. However, his personal opinion in the context of the family business and the business in the interests of the country and the state are two different things," the newspaper cites him.
Commenting on the deal in respect of the sale of ENA, the Zhamanak reported: "Thus, a change of ownership of the distributional networks has come to a head. ... Probably, we need to understand why it was said that the electric network would be bought by an offshore company registered in Cyprus. Will the company remain in the game? Why did Karapetyan decide to buy assets with the help of an offshore company? After some time we will receive answers to these questions. …The fact is that long-standing rumors were confirmed yesterday. At the same time, there was another interesting reality. The international consulting company that carried out the audit of ENA noted that the change of electricity tariffs was justified. Samvel Karapetyan said that in the coming year he, together with the government, will subsidize a part of the increased electricity tariffs for households and small businesses. It means that the new owner is to compensate half of the subsidies. It is interesting, what does he get in exchange? Of course, today we have the question in parallel: what will happen next year?’’
The Chorrord Ishkhanutyun newspaper commented on the sale of ENA: "The deal was impartial. Certainly, the authorities 'wanted the best, but it turned out as always'. Despite all its efforts, the company Tashir Group also turned out to be unequal to the occasion. It was unable to represent the purchase of ENA as a charitable step of Armenian businessman due to which the population of Armenia should be thankful. This fact prevented the secrecy of the deal, the scheme "through offshore" and so on. Is it charity? They just launder money and cover their tracks of suspicious transactions," the author concludes.
An audit inspection of the company Electric Networks of Armenia will be carried out by Deloitte & Touche. This fact raises some doubts about its objectivity, the Zhamanak reports.
"By the way, this audit company opened its office in Armenia a week before winning the competition" the newspaper reports.
The Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper reports that a crisis is expected in the market of non-ferrous metals in Armenia.
"Our sources in the Ministry of Economy of Armenia reported that several mining companies intend to suspend production of non-ferrous metals temporarily until the end of the year. The reason is caused by the continuing decline in prices for non-ferrous metals, primarily copper on the world market.
We mean relatively small mining companies, which are sensitive to metal prices. At a certain level of copper prices their activity becomes uneconomical. At the moment, there are two mining companies, which expressed a clear intention to suspend their activities,’’ the newspaper reports.
"Armenia is in 82nd place out of 140 countries of global competitiveness. Moreover, Armenia is significantly inferior to neighboring countries in terms of competitiveness, The Chorrord Ishkhanutyun reports. "But we can be proud that Armenia is ahead of Laos, Namibia and Zimbabwe," newspaper declares.
The Haykakan Zhamanak writes: "The decline of volumes of private transfers from abroad to Armenia has a catastrophic tempo. Net inflows of private transfers fell by almost half in August in comparison with August of last year. ... According to the Central Bank of Armenia, the main culprit of this reduction is Russia, as in August private transfers from Russia more than halved."
The Zhoghovurd reports that in the last two months Yerevan and regional administrations received an increased number of applicants with intestinal diseases.
"The fact of a sharp increase of cases of intestinal diseases was also confirmed by official statistics. Thus, in August of this year 1741 cases of acute intestinal diseases were recorded in Armenia. Only 1179 patients were registered in the same period last year. The number of intestinal diseases increased by 47.6%," the publication reports.
"It should be noted that among those suffering from intestinal diseases, 171 patients had bacterial dysentery. In the same period last year the number was 63. 1065 acute intestinal infections were caused by unsubstantiated and unproven agents. During this period in 2014, this number was 651,’’ the newspaper reports.
The Yerevani Mayor’s office messed up the costs of the holiday of Erebuni-Yerevan with state secrets and refused to provide citizens with a report on how they spent more than 150 million drams, the Haykakan Zhamanak reports.
"At the end of September, our correspondent sent a written request to the Mayor’s office to provide a report on the costs of last year's Erebuni-Yerevan festival", as well as an estimate of the upcoming spending on the holiday this year. He also asked how much money was allocated by sponsoring the organizations of these two key events.
It is known that 130 million drams was allocated in both this and last year from the local budget. But they also received private transfers. However, the city authorities are not willing to reveal these issues. So our written request remained unanswered, although recently Vice-Mayor Aram Sukiasyan reluctantly replied at a press conference that this year they received 30 million drams, noting that this number has a tendency to increase," the newspaper reports.
