During a press conference held last week, Chairman of the National Assembly Tigran Torosyan announced that the National Assembly had ceased the 10 million AMD grant program provided to the “Russian-Armenian interregional cooperation center” NGO. According to Torosyan, this NGO was founded in 2005 and last year, it received 20 million AMD from the National Assembly. This year, it was expected to provide another 20 million to the organization: The NA has already provided the first half, but the rest will not be granted due to the decision of the NA Chairman: “The National Assembly is not a donor organization.” However, according to head of the NGO that has stopped getting funding, the NGO will continue working.
“The organization will find means of carrying on even without funding from the parliament,” said head of the NGO Henrik Bakunts during an interview given to “Azatutyun” radio station. In response to the question as to whether or not Bakunts had heard of another organization receiving funding from the parliament, Bakunts said:
“I don’t know: Perhaps there is, but I don’t know anything. But I know for a fact that the Armenian government and the presidential administration provide aid and funding for NGOs. Perhaps things are different at the National Assembly.” As for the question as to whether or not it was mandatory to join the “Rule of Law” party if you’re a scientist, in order to get aid from the party, Bakunts said that he has been working in the health sector for the past 30 years and believes that the health sector isn’t improving in Armenia.
“Although the money is growing, but neither the patient’s nor the doctor’s situation is getting better. At the time, Arthur Baghdasaryan offered me to show active participation in the health sector and I agreed. I also agreed to join the party,” said H. Bakunts: It is worth mentioning that T. Torosyan had announced that the abovementioned NGO has published the poems of Avetik Isahakyan, has organized the “Norma” film/opera premiere and other such things;
R.T.