The customs privileges for the warehouse belonging to the family of Meghri’s mayor will be revoked. This is what deputy of the ruling My Step bloc of the National Assembly of Armenia Sisak Gabrielyan said during today’s discussion on the bill on making amendments to the Tax Code held as part of the special parliamentary session.

Gabrielyan recalled that in 2017, Mayor of Meghri Mkhitar Zakaryan had addressed a letter to Karen Karapetyan, who was the Prime Minister of Armenia at the time, asking him for privileges for the customs warehouses that were going to be opened at a 1 km radius from the Meghri Customs Point. The letter also stated that the granting of privileges would allow to create new warehousesand new jobs and the drivers of cars parked there would be exempt from paying the road tax which constitutes AMD 150-200,000 from the Iranian border to Yerevan.

“The problem is that a customs warehouse has been operating with this radius since 2004 and is owned by the mayor’s wife. Moreover, it’s technically impossible to build another warehouse there since there’s not enough room, and so Zakaryan’s family business is benefiting from the privilege,” the parliamentarian clarified.

According to Gabrielyan, after this, Zakaryan opened a diesel fuel import company and brought almost only his cars to the customs warehouse. As a result, compared with other Iranian oil importers, Zakaryan receives unsubstantiated privilege (AMD 15-20 for one liter of diesel fuel).

The MP rushed to note that the attempts to link this bill to the incident that took place during Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s visit to Meghri are completely inappropriate.

During the vote, 79 deputies of the ruling My Step bloc unanimously voted in favor of this bill in the first reading.