Temporary manager of Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA) Romanos Petrosyan has said that, in his assessment, the company’s board of directors has played no meaningful role in managing the company for more than a year, urging its members to give up salaries received “for doing nothing.” He made the statement on his Facebook page.
“Over the past 12 months, since the Public Services Regulatory Commission launched administrative proceedings against ENA and temporary management began, the company’s board of directors has received a total of about 260 million drams from ENA’s financial resources in remuneration, including taxes.
Of that amount, the five paid members of the board received about 176 million drams in salaries, including taxes, while around 84 million drams, including taxes, was allocated to the board’s staff, including advisers, assistants, drivers and others.
It is noteworthy that during this period the board did not provide any support to the company’s crisis management efforts, had absolutely no involvement in addressing the challenges facing this strategic company, managing and preventing risks, or making and implementing decisions aimed at the company’s sustainable development.
Moreover, over the past year the board did not hold a single meeting, which it was required to submit for approval to the temporary manager, and none of its members conducted any working meetings, discussions or initiatives for the benefit of the company’s normal operations.
Thus, we can conclude that for more than a year ENA’s board of directors has been in a state of apparent inactivity, while several of its members continue to receive compensation from the company’s financial resources, which ultimately also has an indirect impact on the tariff margin.
Accordingly, based on the above and acting in the company’s best interests, I propose that the board members who receive salaries from ENA’s budget follow the example of former board chairman and National Assembly lawmaker Narek Karapetyan by voluntarily giving up the salaries allocated to them ‘for doing nothing’ until the company’s legal and organizational structure is changed,” the post says.
Petrosyan added that, as the person responsible for executive management, he is ready to redirect those funds to the bonus pool for thousands of employees receiving salaries at the minimum pay level.
“P.S. Under the company’s charter, setting and/or revising the monthly salaries of board members is outside the authority of the temporary manager and falls exclusively within the competence of the general meeting of shareholders.
P.P.S. I would also like to remind everyone that I have repeatedly invited the board’s now former chairman, Narek Karapetyan, to visit ENA’s headquarters, where he also has a separate office, and hold a working meeting with me in the interests of the company. All of those invitations have gone unanswered,” the post says.
The Armenian government is set to initiate the process of declaring ENA’s shares a public priority interest and expropriating them through nationalization. The government offered ENA’s owners, the family of Samvel Karapetyan, $380,000 for the company. Karapetyan considered the amount unacceptable, and negotiations with the Armenian government scheduled for May 25 did not take place.
