Within the framework of the 10th session of the conference of member states of the United Nations Convention against Corruption, which is being held in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, the OSCE organized a related event on the topic "Political will in the fight against corruption" on December 11, where the Chairman of RA Anti-Corruption Committee Sasun Khachatryan also made a speech. The Chairman of the Committee reaffirmed Armenia's commitment to do everything possible to have a corruption-free country and expressed confidence that the democratic world will continue to help our country in this matter.
Referring to the importance of a joint, systematic fight against corruption and the need for political will as a fundamental condition in this fight, Sasun Khachatryan presented the steps being implemented within the framework of the measures foreseen by the anti-corruption strategy adopted by the Government of the Republic of Armenia in 2019, including the process of creating and establishing the Anti-Corruption Committee.
The Chairman of the Committee, in particular, noted the contribution of such international structures as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs of the US Embassy in that process. Sasun Khachatryan particularly stressed on the improvement of the professional skills of the employees of the Anti-Corruption Committee, as well as the efforts and support of these two structures aimed at increasing the efficiency in the detection of corruption crimes and their pre-trial proceedings.
According to the Chairman of the Committee, thanks to the financial and technical support of the OSCE and INL, a number of professional training courses, introductory and educational visits of officers holding positions of autonomous and operative-intelligence functions, that is, investigators and operative inspectors, were implemented.
Sasun Khachatryan presented the work carried out by the Committee with the structures performing similar functions in other states, referring, in particular, to the memorandums of understanding signed with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, Italy’s Guardia di Finanza (Financial Guard) and the Basel Institute of Management.
The Chairman of the committee noted that, despite the relatively short period of activity, the Anti-Corruption Committee managed to achieve significant success in the field of detection and investigation of corruption-related crimes, emphasizing that currently the corruption crimes detected in the Republic of Armenia do not have a hierarchical nature and a typical pyramidal structure, these are local cases, and often cases of corruption are revealed by the efforts and assistance of the management staff of these bodies; "In other words, we can record that there is a political will in eradicating corruption, which I believe is the decisive factor, and the rest is a matter of resources and time, and I am sure that with the gradual improvement of anti-corruption legislation together with the development of our anti-corruption potential, cases of revealing corruption will increase, and the corruption phenomena, due to deepening of awareness of the inevitability of responsibility, under the conditions of ensuring proper anti-corruption education, will decrease," the chairman of the Anti-Corruption Committee said.
