The directions for spending the sums transferred by the “Hayastan” All-Armenian Fund to the Government of the Republic of Armenia during the war are clearly stipulated by contract. According to Armenpress, during a conversation with journalists, the executive director of the “Hayastan” All-Armenian Fund, Haygak Arshamyan, noted that the Fund cannot make expenditures other than those within its statutory purposes.
“We cannot make military expenditures. The sums transferred to the government helped the state so that the healthcare and social systems could be maintained, and the funds that were to be directed to those systems were directed to other urgent expenditures. That was the whole logic. We have a clear contract where the directions are specified. When the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Armenia presents the detailed procurement report, we will post it on the website, and everyone will see it. No salaries or bonuses have been paid from the Fund’s resources; that is ordinary manipulation. When you specify by contract where your expenditures should go, then the funds cannot be spent for other purposes. They must remain within the framework of the contract. I ask everyone to be a little patient; we will receive all those reports from the ministry and post them on our website. I myself am speaking about this; we are open-faced, simple and transparent. At least in the last two years the Fund has worked that way. We do not intend to deviate from that,” said Haygak Arshamyan.
He clarified the process according to which the Fund gave a certain amount of money to the government during the war. He first recalled that this fundraising took place at the request of the governments of Artsakh and Armenia, so that the country could withstand the calamity. Then Haygak Arshamyan noted that during the war, especially in October, when it was a tense period, Artsakh’s demands were quite numerous. There was a need for procurements in many directions. The Fund made large-scale procurements. In particular, diesel generators, ambulances, medical equipment, medical supplies, household necessities, large quantities of batteries, lamps, beds, mobile charging stations powered by solar thermal energy, a huge number of stoves, mobile gas stoves, and so on. Despite that, the demands and needs grew day by day, and in parallel the number of required procurements increased, but the Fund did not have the great capacity to enter into a procurement process of such volume.
“And we delegated to the Republic of Armenia, we coordinated all the expenditures that were to be made within those frameworks. Our Board of Trustees made a decision that a portion of the funds be transferred to the government to carry out the procurements more quickly and favourably. The procurements concern refugees, healthcare, the social system, and so on. It is war, it is a force-majeure (extraordinary) situation; Armenia and organisations have never been in such a situation. Let me say that this was not the function of the Fund’s executive body; the Board of Trustees also voted in favour of those decisions. By the way, no one voted against,” he said.
Haygak Arshamyan recalled that in the Board of Trustees there are not only state officials but also diaspora organisations. Many benefactors who have supported the Fund for years are involved in the Board of Trustees. In his words, that decision can also be described as consensual, because there was no one voting against.
To the question of whether there are calculations of how much money is needed for Artsakh and to what extent the Fund’s available money covers those expenditures, Haygak Arshamyan noted that at this moment there are no complete calculations.
“The making of those calculations is in process, but the Fund must in the meantime work to close the gaps that the government of Artsakh does not manage to close. Every day I receive letters from the leadership of Artsakh asking for procurements to be made to satisfy clear needs. Those needs are so great; people are homeless, some of them are in Armenia. I repeat again, this is a force-majeure (extraordinary) situation; this leads to the problem of having to make urgent decisions,” added the Fund’s executive director.
