In the scope of the powers of initiating a claim on the protection of state (community) interest the Department of State Interests Protection of the Prosecutor General’s Office examined documents regarding the building located at Byuzand 1/3 Str. and belonging to Yerevan community.

As a result of the examination it was found out, that during 2010-2023 relevant officials of the Municipality of the city of Yerevan leased a number of premises from the second building located at Buzand 1/3 Str, belonging to the same community, to various physical and legal entities at obviously low prices.

 Within 2010-2020 the Council of Elders of the city of Yerevan, during the process of defining the lease payment in their program, stated that the amount of the monthly lease payment for the property to be leased shall be defined by decision N 125 of the Government dated February 22, 2001.

The Council of Elders of the city of Yerevan from 2021 onwards (after the abovementioned decision was repealed) has defined in their program on the provision for use or alienation of the property owned by the community that the minimum amount of the lease payment for the leased property shall be defined according to the market assessment, pursuant to Decision №914-N of the Government of the Republic of Armenia dated June 4, 2020.

It was found out under the examination that instead of acting in accordance with the provisions of the above-mentioned program, the officials of the Municipality arbitrarily leased the immovable property belonging to the community at obviously low prices to a number of physical and legal entities, while the minimum lease payment for the premises should have been calculated using the specified formulas, an auction or tender should have been announced for the premises, the market value should be formed and due to the change in the legislation, the premises should have been subjected to a market valuation by an independent appraiser.

For example a premises with the surface of 140 m² has been leased from 2011 until now for AMD 56 thousand (1m² for AMD 400), however, according to the information provided by the Cadaster Committee the average market value of 1 m² in the same premises amounted to AMD 5.187 (in case of leasing at the market price the monthly lease payment for the premises with the surface of 140 m²  shall amount to AMD 726 thousand 180 ), a premises with the surface of 494.4 m²  has been leased since 2011 (in 2017 the contract was prolonged until 24.08.2027 under the same conditions) to one of the political parties for AMD 123 thousand 600 (1m² for AMD 250) (in case of leasing at the market price the monthly lease payment for the premises with the surface of 494.4 m²  shall amount to AMD 2 million 562 thousand 378) etc.

According to the preliminary data a damage in the amount of AMD 877 million was caused to the state according to the average market price (the amount of the caused damage was calculated on the basis of the application of the Prosecutor’s Office based on the amount of the lease payment of 7 tenants from 28 tenants received from the Municipality of Yerevan).

Taking into consideration the fact, that during the examination cases of alleged crime were revealed, the prosecutor submitted a report on the crime to the Anti-corruption committee. 

On January 20, 2024, a criminal proceedings was initiated in the Anti-corruption committee under point 2 of part 2 of article 441 of the Criminal Code.