ArmInfo. The current, rather impressive external debt of Armenia is primarily due to corruption, which has corroded the country's governance system for decades, economist Vahagn Khachatryan expressed a similar opinion to ArmInfo.
According to the Statistical Committee of Armenia, as of July 1, the total public debt of Armenia amounted to $ 6,934.0 million, $ 4,930.9 million of which accounts for external debt. Thus, for the first time since 2015, the external debt of Armenia decreased by $ 120 million, or 2.1%. In general, over the past decade, the external debt of the republic has grown from $ 1.9 billion to $ 6,934 billion. Khachatryan assesses the positive trends in the direction of reducing the country's external debt in the light of government measures to increase the targeted use of public funds, for example, in road construction. According to him, such projects are being implemented today with much greater efficiency and impact than in previous years. Moreover, in his opinion, it was the construction of roads that for many years was the main "feeding trough" of burglar officials of even the highest level.
"In general, no one is against raising credit for the purpose of developing the economy. Even the countries with the most developed economies do it. The whole question is how these funds are used. First of all, the directions of credit injections should be studied and how efficiently these funds are used. All these are questions for which for many years we practically did not hear the answers, "the economist emphasized. To note, one of the most effective areas for "appropriating" budgetary funds is road construction. In particular, the North-South highway construction project that has been launched but has remained incomplete. The project is carried out on credit funds raised from the Asian Development Bank. According to the Minister of Transport and Communications and Information Technologies of Armenia Hakob Arshakyan, $ 550 million was raised for the construction of the North-South highway, of which $ 200 million has already been used.
On September 11, the Investigative Committee of Armenia announced the involvement of three people as defendants in the framework of a criminal investigation instituted on the facts of obvious abuse in the development and implementation of the project for the construction of this highway. It is noteworthy that one of them is the former ambassador of the Republic of Armenia on special assignments, the brother of the former president of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan Levon Sargsyan. The matter concerns abuse of power and influence on the issue of choosing and attracting a subcontractor to carry out construction work under the program, worth $ 250 million.