A tender to purchase 25,000 electronic meters for Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA) resulted in savings of more than 500 million drams, ENA temporary administrator Romanos Petrosyan said in a post on his Facebook page.
The tender was won by the same company, part of the Tashir Group of Companies, that had also supplied meters to ENA in previous years.
“The company that had made ‘monopoly’ supplies to ENA in recent years was this time ‘forced’ to renegotiate the supply price because another major enterprise operating in Armenia and producing energy technology equipment was now participating in the open and transparent tender process. Its entry into this sector had for years been ‘blocked’ with the ‘helping hand’ of ENA’s then owners,” the post said.
Petrosyan said the supplier renegotiated its proposed price this time because another major energy technology manufacturer operating in Armenia also participated in the open tender.
“Since the state’s legitimate intervention and the start of temporary administration at ENA, in my view, this is the clearest and most telling fact reaffirming the acute necessity and justification of the ongoing processes for our country and people,” Petrosyan wrote.
According to figures he published, ENA’s annual procurement plan allocated around 2 billion drams for purchasing 25,000 meters, while the tender’s estimated value was approximately 1.944 billion drams.
Following price renegotiations during the tender process, the winning company offered to supply the same batch of meters for 1.430 billion drams.
As a result, the savings compared with the tender’s estimated value exceeded 500 million drams.
“The saved funds will be reallocated and directed toward urgent modernization work on the distribution network in one of the communities experiencing frequent outages,” the post said.
The Armenian government plans to initiate a process to declare the acquisition of ENA shares a matter of overriding public interest and expropriate them, effectively nationalizing the company. The government offered the owners, the family of Samvel Karapetyan, $380,000 to acquire ENA. Karapetyan considered that amount unacceptable, and negotiations with the Armenian government did not take place on May 25.
