Monday, 4 December 2017
Anticorruption Council Holds Regular Meeting
Chaired by Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan, the Anticorruption Council held a regular meeting in the Office of Government, attended by civil society representatives.
During the meeting, the website of the Anticorruption Monitoring Platform was presented, which contains Armenia’s anticorruption strategy and an action plan to implement anticorruption measures in 2015-2018. The website is meant to help the public monitor the Government’s anticorruption actions, submit online inquiries to those agencies in charge of priority sectors, as well as to officials responsible for other anticorruption programs. Currently under construction, the website is expected to be functional by this yearend.
The next issue on the agenda was the use of practical mechanisms with a view to building a system of whistleblowers and enforcing the sub-legislative acts derivative from the Law of the Republic of Armenia “On Institution of Corruption Reporters.” It was reported that the technical description and the maintenance guidelines for the Unified Electronic Reporting Platform, as well as the forms of digital documents in the event of internal or external alarms and the procedure for protecting the signer had been developed.
Through the Unified Electronic Reporting Platform, any natural or legal person will have an opportunity to submit anonymous reports of corruption. At the same time, an option will be available for reporting in both anonymous and public form. The system provides clearly formulated guarantees for anonymity, as well as technical solutions through which the reporters will have access to the system. It was stressed that nobody will be able to detect the report’s identity and the computer from which the message was sent.
Following active discussions held with civil society, strict requirements have been developed for reporting. Accurate statistics will be published on the number of reports received and criminal proceedings launched.
The meeting reviewed the findings of the service quality and transparency survey carried out by the Medical-Social Expertise Agency of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs in Shirak, Lori, Tavush and Ararat Marzes of Armenia. Karen Karapetyan instructed the Prime Minister’s Control Service to conduct follow-up checks in the aforementioned Marzes based on the survey’s findings.
