Opposition MP says Golden Palace hotel sale is a corruption case
YEREVAN, Feb. 18. /ARKA/. In an interview with the Public Television of Armenia, Gegham Manukyan, an MP from the opposition Hayastan (Armenia) alliance, claimed that the recent sale of Golden Palace hotel in the resort town of Tsakhkadzor to a little known company was ‘manifestation” of corruption.
On February 10, the Armenian government sold the Golden Palace hotel at AMD 5bln. Only one bid was submitted to the tender commission by Project Inter-Invest LLC, which promised also to invest another 4.5 billion drams in the next five years in the hotel’s improvement,.
The government had already tried to auction the hotel, which was estimated to cost 7.5 billion drams (about $15.8 million), but the price was cut down due to absence of bidders.
The decision to auction the hotel was made by the government in 2019 November. The Golden Palace hotel located in the resort town of Tsaghkadzor belonged to Armen Avetisyan, a former chief of the Armenian customs service. Avetisyan offered to donate it to the state after the National Security Service (NSS) moved to prosecute him for illegal entrepreneurship and money laundering.
"Five billion drams (an approximate equivalent of $10 million) is a lot of money. Everyone thought that Golden Palace would be bought by a rich foreign company. And suddenly it emerged that it was bought by an Armenian company. After an in-depth study it turned out that this company was fined several times by the State Revenue Committee of Armenia for tax evasion," Manukyan said.
According to Manukyan, the most important part in this story is the hotel purchasing scheme. He explained that according to the sale contract the 5 billion drams will have to be paid by installments during 5 years.
"This is called an installment scheme: the hotel works, paying taxes from its profits. But it still remains unknown: who is the real buyer?, ‘ he said.
"The hotel was sold, the owner was told to pay the price within 5 years. This is an installment plan, there was no such thing in Armenia before," he said.
The Project Inter-Invest company was founded in 2002. The company owns a number of enterprises and offices in Yerevan, Yeghvard, Masis, Charentsavan, Artashat and Nor-Geghi. It is also engaged in cargo transportation. According to the State Revenue Committee, the company was 357th in the list of 1000 largest corporate tax payers in 2021 having paid more than 651mln drams in taxes. ($1 - 478.38 drams) -0-