Indicators of Competence

The following story is an indicator of the level of competence of the government and also the Armenia Fund.

First I will point out the first part of the story, which talks about a Diaspora owned milk factory, the largest in all of Artsakh. In short, what is documented below is what happens when you keep taking the advice of the Prime Minister, who keeps recommending thieves to run your factory. All I can say is that the people who own the factory have very big hearts and keep having to pump money into the factory to keep it going. One of the problems are too many smaller milk factories, many owned by high-ranking officials or their relatives, and the worst is those same factories intentionally producing bad products and putting them in recycled containers of the Diaspora owners company so that people will think their products are bad and stop buying them.

As for the Armenia Funds project of rebuilding a hospital. The story mentions Martuni, but I can tell you that as of yesterday afternoon, our hospital is not being rebuilt, nor has it been vacated. It is having the heating system changed, which we hope will be done in the next few days, since it's snowing right now.

They probably meant to say the Mardakert hospital, which is in very bad shape and I would say should be demolished and built from the ground up. You have to ask why a project by the Armenia Fund was started for rebuilding instead of replacing, which of course will cost many times more?

It sounds to me that both those in Government today and those at the helm of the Armenia Fund need to get a little bit better organized and think things out before making moves forward. This is one of the major problems today in Armenia and Artsakh and that is incompetent and unqualified people running things.


QUESTIONS TO THE GOVERNMENT

Azat Artsakh Daily, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh [NKR]
24 Feb 07


During the recent meeting of the NKR parliament Member of Parliament Maxim Mirzoyan inquired about the difficult condition the Arvard Company owned by the Anivian family is in, and what steps will be taken to improve it. The minister of territorial administration and development of industrial infrastructures Armo Tsatrian said the owners of the company decide what will be with the company. `As for the processing line Mr. Mirzoyan mentioned, it was worked out for a year and 318 tons of dry starter was produced. This technology is not effective in Karabakh because there is no sufficient raw material and specialists,' said the minister. Member of Parliament Sergey Ohanian expressed worry about the reconstruction of the hospital of Martuni funded by Armenia Foundation. He said the hospital was to be reconstructed by a company based in Kapan, Armenia. The hospital temporality moved into another building. `However, the reconstruction of the hospital has stopped. When will it be resumed?' Sergey Ohanian asked. The minister of urban planning Marat Hakobjanian said the NKR Prime Minister set up a commission. A study showed that the building should be demolished, but considering financial problems, Armenia Foundation decided to make a new project of the hospital building. `The ministry proposes reconstruction of the hospital building or construction of a new building. After the estimations of costs one of these two options will be chosen. Armenia Foundation is supposed to deal with this problem considering its financial capacity,' said Marat Hakobjanian.

LAURA GRIGORIAN.
24-02-2007