It has been found out that, from 2009 to 2018, several officials who were engaged in the implementation of the North-South Road Corridor construction project in Armenia, have used their official position in contrast to the interests of this service, or have not fulfilled their respective obligations, in an attempt to conceal the ineffective management of this project.

In particular, in violation of the specified deadlines, construction of the North-South Highway was not completed. As a result, the respective damage caused to the Armenian state has made up AMD 23,553,817,000 (approx. $48,439,720).

On September 4, the Prosecutor General’s Office filed a criminal case into the aforesaid cases.

The ensuing investigation has revealed that the manager of the project team of a joint French enterprise that conducts technical supervision during construction of Tranche 1 of this road construction project had reached prior consent with persons in charge of a Spanish contractor company carrying out the construction, as well as with some officials from the Ministry of Transport, Communication and Information Technologies of Armenia, and had included false information and recorded additional expenditures in the intermediate payment documents for January to June 2016, and with respect to the extent of the work. As a result, this project manager had stolen $1.9 million by fraudulent means.

A signature bond to not leave Armenia has been enforced as the preventive measure for this foreign manager of the project team of the said French organization, and this person has been included as a suspect in the aforementioned criminal case. 

The investigation is still in progress.