Payment of Sanitek's unpaid taxes under treat - head of Armenian State Revenue Committee

YEREVAN, October 17. /ARKA/. David Ananyan, head of the Armenian State Revenue Committee, told journalists on Wednesday that payment of Sanitek's unpaid taxes is under threat. He said that in 2017, when sealing its contract with the Yerevan municipality, Sanitek Armenia, the branch of Sanitek International Group –a multinational waste management company headquartered in Lebanon, formalized its activity as freight company and was paying fixed taxes. However, after the tax law amended in 2018, the company had to pay taxes at common rates.

Ananyan said that Sanitek tried to refer to the law on foreign investors, which allow keeping tax rates unchanged for 5 years, but the authorities thought otherwise, and therefore a criminal case was opened over the Sanitek imbroglio. In his words, the payment of the skim money that totals AMD 600 million is under threat, since, in fact, the company is not carrying out activity in Armenia. "But we still will do whatever is possible to restore the damage inflicted to the state," Ananyan said.

Mayor Hayk Marutyan has repeatedly and publicly expressed dissatisfaction with the ineffective work of Sanitek, emphasizing that Yerevan residents would  no longer tolerate its poor performance. In the spring of this year, Sanitek was twice fined by the Municipality for failing to fulfill its contractual obligations in the amount of 13 million drams (more than $26,800) and 26 million drams ($54,100).  Sanitek was chosen by the previous administration of the Yerevan Municipality to handle sanitary cleaning and waste recycling of the capital city and until recently it was a monopolist in this business.

In September, Hakob Karapetyan, a spokesman for the mayor’s office, said that 165,340 million drams (almost $350 thousand) were transferred to Sanitek in August. Sanitek Armenia responded by saying that they had been forced to delay the payment of wages to workers due to the failure of the Municipality of Yerevan to make timely and full payments for its services. The company indicated that in August the Yerevan Municipality was supposed to transfer 430 million drams (more than $900 thousand), but only 141.8 million drams (almost $300 thousand) were received in the first half of the month, and no money was received in the second half.

In early October, the Mayor Hayk Marutyan, announced that the Yerevan Municipality unilaterally terminated the agreement with Sanitek. -0---