The Lori Provincial Prosecutor's Office has launched criminal cases of alleged local government abuses in the communities of Gogaran and Hartagyugh, this according to a statement released by the Prosecutor General’s Office.

The mayor of Gogaran has been charged with falsifying the minutes of community council meetings, and forging the signatures of council members, regarding the provision of social assistance to residents.

The Gogaran mayor is also charged with using his official position, for his personal benefit, in securing high rates of land tax collection, suggesting that some 14 residents of the community apply for social assistance to pay their accumulated land tax liabilities.

In the other case, the mayor of Hartagyugh has been charged with allowing two technical staffers of the municipality from not showing up from work between May 2014 and June 2019 and falsifying salary documents amounting to AMD 7.5 million.

An investigation also revealed that the Hartagyugh mayor, between 2015 and 2019, instructed his secretary to falsify the signatures of three community council members who never showed up for council meetings, in order to allocate AMD 1 million in social assistance in the name of 36 individuals.

Evidence was also unearthed that the Hartagyugh mayor demanded and received an AMD 300,000 bribe in 2017 from a resident to facilitate the allocation an unfinished building and a plot of land.