‘Jhoghovurd’. What Corruption and Clan Mentality is Sarhat Petrosyan Talking About?

‘Jhoghovurd’ newspaper reports that the head of the State Committee of Real Estate Cadastre of the Republic of Armenia, Sarhat Petrosyan, announced on October 18 that he had requested Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to relieve him of his duties. He cited that he “does not share our government’s policy and existing approaches in the field of urban development, which for me also includes the cadastre sphere. And I, as the head of a body subordinate to the government and a professionally trained architect-urbanist, can no longer tolerate the dilettantism and clan mentality that leads to corruption, which I have fought against since my student years, then likewise in the public domain, and later as an expert...”

What corruption and clan mentality is he talking about? Mr. Petrosyan refrains from elaborating. The newspaper spoke with Vahagn Vermishyan, the head of the Urban Development Committee of the Republic of Armenia, who also asserted, “I was very dissatisfied with the current state of the cadastre.” He mentioned that no mapping had been done in the country. He recounted that there are plans to build an industrial facility in the Ararat region, which would subsequently bring significant funds into the state budget, create jobs, and so on. The Minister of Agriculture stated that he was not opposed, but the cadastre service is categorically against it. “Here you want to appear more Christian than the Pope... It’s a problem of state thinking. There are more than ten such cases,” he added.

When we conveyed Sarhat Petrosyan's claims to Vermishyan that we are regressing in the field of urban development, he became infuriated. “A person must have at least built one henhouse in their life to say something about urban development…”

For more details, refer to today’s issue of the newspaper.