By now most readers should know where Bruce Tasker’s blog, Blowing the World Bank Whistle, and there’s probably now no need to link to it so frequently. However, his latest post did catch my eye because to this day I am still confused as to why consumers were expected to pay for water meters to be installed rather than the company who stood to gain the most from their introduction.

The Municipal Development Project was designed and approved for the Yerevan water company to resolve a number of problems, including reducing the enormous amount of water it loses every day - the main reason why the company keeps increasing the water tariff. According to the World Bank, the Yerevan water company loses four times more water than its subscribers actually use.

Thousands of meters of new pipes were brought into the Republic to replace the worst parts of the water distribution pipeline. But the International Operator could not demonstrate to the Parliamentary Commission that those pipes had been used for the intended purpose. He did however provide a ledger of works orders showing that the pipes had been used for emergency repair jobs. But the Commission’s Lawyer deemed all of those works orders to be fraudulent. So where those pipes went remained an interesting question, the answer to which is no longer a closely guarded secret.

On the other hand, the International Operator could show that he had installed 415,500 water meters for domestic subscribers.

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But the Municipal Development Project water meters were not installed by the project, they were Sold to Yerevan’s domestic water consumers, who also Paid for the Installation.

The revenue generated by the sale and installation of 415,500 water meters amounted to more than Twelve Million Dollars – a nice gift for A. Utilities from Yerevan’s water users.

This Blog repeats a request to the Department of Institutional Integrity to please stand by your promise to send a team of investigators to Yerevan and demonstrate your readiness to respond to claims of Fraud and Corruption in Bank Financed Operations, by carrying out a full investigation into this matter.

The full post is here.