The healthcare system in Armenia has been distorted for many years. This is what Chair of the Standing Committee on Economic Affairs of the National Assembly of Armenia Babken Tunyan told journalists today, touching upon the case of sale of children that has caused uproar in the country.

According to him, the system couldn’t function, if it wasn’t coalesced with the law-enforcement authorities in some sense.

Tunyan was asked if he could indicate five economic entities that had a monopoly before the revolution and no longer have monopolies, and in response, he said the following: “Formally speaking, we could say there were no monopolies in the past as well. There were and still are many players in the monopolies, but can they enter the market and do customs and tax authorities create special conditions for the large players? Do state institutions pressure small players or not? Unfortunately, in many cases, the State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition has been used as a ‘bludgeon’ to not let small players enter the market instead of promoting competition,” the chair of the Committee said.