Will try to assure?
Overall, the "Millennium Challenges-Armenia" program was a failure," says civil society representative of the board of beneficiaries of the Millennium Challenges Corporation, Head of "Asbarez" Press Club Levon Barseghyan.
According to him, the program envisaged an additional 6 percent reduction of rural poverty within 5 years and the sums were foreseen to be spent on irrigation, credit for villagers and the renovation of rural roads.
"However, in summer 2008, the management board, the RA Prime Minister, 5-6 ministers and 5 civil society representatives decided to cut the irrigation size, explaining that by the devluation of the U.S. dollar and the rise of construction prices," said Levon Barseghyan.
According to him, that was done without discussions with NGOs and villagers and road construction was reduced after a closed session. Let us mention that it was foreseen to invest 235 million dollars.
Levon Barseghyan says that was reduced "thanks" to Robert Kocharyan three years ago and reached 55 million. "Those sums had to be invested for the renovation of 900 km of rural roads that make up 18-20 percent of the road network," said Barseghyan.
Currently, Armenia has received and spent a 180 million dollar grant for program implementation. The MCC-Armenia program will end on the night of September 28 as scheduled. To this day, Levon Barseghyan has a hard time guessing the real reason for reduction.
"When the dollar was evaluated, there was no recalculation of programs. The government could have held new tenders, but the management board announced that that was a hard process. They didn't take into consideration the impact of factors and had already determined the volume of production," said Levon Barseghyan.
CEO of the Millennium Challenges Corporation Daniel Johanes is in Armenia to observe the results of the U.S.-funded MCC-Armenia program. Levon Barseghyan will also meet with him and express his concerns about the program.
"It is not excluded that the Armenian authorities will try to assure that Armenia is on the right path and ask for the 2nd program. It is not excluded that Serzh Sargsyan's administration dares to do that."
