YEREVAN (Armenpress)–The amount of damages inflicted last year by corruption and related crimes amounted to almost 3.5 billion drams–while local courts were able to recover only 236 million drams. Bagrat Yesayan–an aide to president Kocharian–revealed these figures and said law-enforcement bodies have to shift the focus on recovering money lost to corruption.
He said this was one of recommendations of a report on Armenia by GRECO–an organization that helps its member states fight corruption. Yesayan downplayed public discontent with the law that only convicted 97 government officials of corruption when 352 such crimes were reported.