We, the Armenians, are very interesting people. Hardly there are other countries in the world where a shoe-maker may agree to be minister without thinking twice if he is offered to be so. In our country most of people are like that because by saying minister they first of all imagine a large office, soft armchair, cute secretary, service car, free trips to different countries and private businesses.
There are few people who won’t agree to become minister and mainly they say that they don’t want to become minister because their age is not appropriate or they just don’t want to be involved in dirty games. There are few people who would say that their knowledge and background are not adequate with this position and that is why they cannot be a minister. “This crisis helped us understand the worst thing, especially in the economic policy, which is that when the policy makers become arrogant and think that everything is good, it is the way it should be.” These are great words. The author of these words continues the idea by reminding that in recently The Financial Times asked a question to the heads of 10 car production companies. These people were asked what was the 10 main problems because of which they did not sleep. The first three places in the answers of all these people was the following: “the fright that my workers, me or my leaders may become arrogant.” The author of these words also means that people could refuse to accept their mistakes and the advices of others. It is true and it is true about the Armenian reality too. In 2009 Armenia had the biggest impact from the crisis but no one wants to confess this fact. When someone says that the reason is the economic system inherited from the previous government the former president does not agree and says that during his tenure the economic growth was dual-digit and the foreign debt was not so big. The government assures that the anti-crisis policy is success and they think it is heroism to borrow millions of dollars, indeed every day they speak of fighting corruption and monopolies. The more they speak of supporting the business environment, the more the small and medium businesses are complaining, and they are complaining directly to the prime minister. “What did they complain of in Alaverdi. Despite our petitions many state bodies entered the small businesses to check up their activities. We don’t understand it. We must find it out, Mr. Yeritsyan I mean your ministry, because we were informed in Alaverdi that the state institutions had ignored the prime minister’s order and checked up the activities of small businesses there. We will give you the list of those companies, you go and find it out,” said Tigran Sargsyan at the recent session of the government. At the same session the PM also criticized the state incomes committee and ministry of finance because their research had shown that there was disproportionate balance against the interests of small and medium businesses. The PM was angry to learn that the capacity of taxation inspection grew by 82 per cent in 2009, as a result of which the due sums were cut down by 25 per cent.
The press wrote that it was a small conflict between the prime minister and the head of the state incomes committee Gagik Khachatryan or the PM was trying to show that he was still powerful. The authors of this opinion ask a question to the prime minster whether he did not know that fact before this visit or whether he did not know that the taxes of big businesses were defined exclusively by the top managers of the relative state institutions. It was him who said that the struggle against oligopolies is not a struggle against oligarchs. Even the official web site of the government makes it clear that this session of the government was demonstrated for PR purposes. Usually after the sessions of the government in the site some information is posted, in which they cite some parts of the prime minister’s speech and information on his decisions. However, on April 15 they posted only the opening speech of the prime minister.
There may be two conclusions out of the information above. Either the economic situation is bad and is still worsening, or there are people in the government who have failed their work and are trying to put the blame on each other.
The problem is that it is a time when it is hard to blow minds. They say that the crisis is over and we are recovering now, thus they cannot put the blame on the crisis anymore. By the way, from this point of view the one to be faced with the biggest dilemma should be the minister of economy because he was the one to speak of easy recovering from the crisis and he even ignored the advises of other economists such as Hrant Bagratyan and decided to focus on scientific expressions and formulas. He is not the primary guilty person, neither is the minister of finance, who was targeted by the prime minister. The main actors were the prime minister and the state incomes committee. The problem is that in our country the economic policy is identified with the policy of filling the budget and it is the responsibility of the state incomes committee. The “Armenian World” has nothing to brag about at present (the production is in poor situation, the economy is falling) besides the intensive collection of budget inflows to pay the pensions and other social payments. If the primary goal of the state policy is to fill the budget with money by fining people for not using the car security belts or other small things, then they should put the blame on the ones who are collecting that money but not their leadership. Neither the tax officers nor the traffic police are saint and fallen down from the sky, but we should not forget that they are not in paradise and they are not doing the orders of angels either.