YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 22, NOYAN TAPAN. The World Bank pays serious attention to the RA Control Chamber's observations on the possible deviations from the implementation of the City Heating Program, is said in a statement of the WB Yerevan Office. To recap, at the September 17 press conference, the chairman of the RA Control Chamber Ishkhan Zakarian stated that by the conclusion of Control Chamber, the City Heating Program implemented with the WB's assistance was a failure. To substantiate this opinion, he indicated the fact that in 2006-2007, only 193 poor families of the envisaged 4,000 ones were supplied with heating. However, according to the WB Yerevan Office, the World Bank has not yet received the report of the Control Chamber. Nevertheless, using the information available to it, the WB Yerevan Office presents its explanations about the two main problems pointed out by the Control Chamber: the transfer of 500 thousand dollars to a Panama-based off-shore organization and the slow implementation of the progam's component "Allocation of Capital Grants to the Poor". According to the WB's explanation, 460 thousand dollars was transferred to the supplier registered in Panama. The indicated sum was transferred by Ardshininvestbank, one of the banks - participants in the program's subcredit component. It was 500 thousand dollar subcredit's portion that Ardshininvestbank provided to Yerfrez company for the purchase of heating, hot water and power supply equipment for 4 buildings. Yerfrez CJSC gave a payment order to Ardshininvestbank to transfer 460 thousand dollars of the subcredit resources to the Panama supplier for the purchase of 4 combined heating and electric power microturbines. "The Control Chamber considered this deal a deviation based on the fact that the equipment is not yet in Armenia. Under an agreement between Yerfrez CJSC and the Panama-based supplier, the microturbines shall be supplied in December 2008. No requirement of the legal documents regulating the program's implementation has been violated. The credit resources have been spent for the envisaged goal, that is, for the purchase of gas-operated heating and hot water supply systems," is said in the WB's statement. As for the implementation of the program component "Allocation of Capital Grants to the Poor", according to WB, it is true that it was slowly implemented, which was noted in WB's memoranda and the Armenian government was informed about it. By the statement of the World Bank, in recent period the speed of this component's implementation has increased, and as of September 2008, the gas supply connection and the installation of heating appliances in the apartments of more than 4,000 thousand poor families was completed.

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