The first part of 168-Zham’s interview RA Prime Minister was published in the previous issue of the newspaper. And there we had made a mistake, a typo. Instead of “is”, we typed “isn’t.” We apologize to the readers for that. We are presenting the same part fully.
Question: A part of this critical and discontented sector keeps on immigrating instead of presenting demands. According to statistics the number of immigrants reaches a dangerous point.”
– What are we supposed to do? Should we do our best not to let these critical masses escape from the country and let the revolution take place?(is smiling) In case we want people to stay in Armenia, we should make life better in the country than abroad. When life in Armenia is improved, the critical sector decreases and increases the sector that supports the government. And in case the government fails, people are more inclined to vote for the opposition. Believe me, there is no government who wishes to have lower reputation than the opposition.
– Mr. Prime Minister, you are continuously talking about fighting against oligopolies. But why does this fight keep on failing? And people have an impression that you just talk about that, without taking any steps.
– We have been talking about independent statehood, building democratic country, fighting against black market, decreasing corruption in the course of the last 20 years, but it does not mean that these issues can be solved in a while. But there is no doubt that serious steps should be taken and bases created to abolish or decrease these phenomena. These issues cannot be solved within a day.
– What issues have been solved during the last 3 years?
– Serious changes have been made in the state government system in terms of institutional reforms during the last 3 years. And the reforms we are carrying out will have their inevitable influence on the society. Moreover the reforms are so radical and long run that our society will certainly feel their positive influence.
– When statistics registered a dual-digit economic growth in 2000 and the broad sectors of society didn’t feel any difference, former president Robert Kocharyan and his officials explained that people wouldn’t feel a difference from the materialistic point of view immediately, they would feel it 5 years later. Then some more years were added to it and at the end RA economy had a two-digit economic fall and we didn’t manage to feel that ten-year two-digit growth fully. In what period of time will the improvement results be obvious?
– Do you mean that our country hasn’t had any success since 1993-94?
– Probably there is no need to draw such comparison because during those years our country was at war and we had several hundred thousands of refugees. This period was preceded by the earthquake in Gyumri. Has another Post-Soviet republic experienced such situation?
– Perceptions and discontent of the society are one thing and the processes and changes that take place inside the society are a different thing. It’s obvious that the situation has improved since 93-94. And the improvement is an ongoing process. I’m sure that some positive changes will occur in the future as well simply because we are trying to form a new society in Armenia from the qualitative point of view. It is a very complicated issue. It’s not easy to form a new society and mentality. When I say there is much resistance I imply the resistance of all of us towards changes; we change our code of conduct with great difficulty.
– As a result of the announced reforms our economy will not get rid of the monopolies. And you are often asking journalists for help. Is there any pressure within the government to overcome those problems? It seems you are looking for reasons to justify yourself.
– No changes can be success without the support of the society because if we want to stop corruption, the society must fight against it. All researches show that the level of resistance on part of the society is not strong. We are tolerant to corruption. Most of our people are ready to offer bribe for the purposes of solving their problems and many of them think that it is normal. It means that if the society does not change nothing can be done even if the authorities want change too much. The government is formed by people too and usually they should make decisions that are for the people and the authorities do the wish of the people. We should develop values in the society in order to make reforms easier.
– It is difficult to expect from officials and doctors not to take bribe if they receive low salaries. Maybe it would be better to stop solving the problem from the top and legalize the huge bribes and corruption in the country. No government has taken the risk of increasing salaries rapidly in order that officials do not rely on bribery.
– I totally agree with your point that w should start from the top; this is what we are doing now. Specifically, the adoption of the law on Public Service, controlling 5oo officials, adoption of the institute of registering their properties, adoption of a web site to enable you control officials and other efforts show that the authorities understand that it should be started from the top. If the authorities do not be involved in corruption, it will be easier to get rid of this shortcoming. For this purpose the head of the state made a political decision that we need such law. This will be important especially before elections because the new ministers and MPs will understand that in case of occupying high rank positions their activities will be limited as they will be controlled by the society. The opinion of the society, notwithstanding their political affiliation, is very important for everyone. People will have to work fairly and to some extent this will reduce the level of corruption.
– In Armenia every official has businesses and usually such businesses are not registered or are registered in the names of other people. In such situation hardly officials may agree to discover their properties to register. How will the law solve these problems?
– As a representative of the society do you have the opportunity to see what incomes the prime-minster has and compare his expenses with the incomes? If you see much difference in the income and spending, you can demand explanation how he has purchased his properties. If he declares his property, you will have such opportunity. The public control over the properties of state officials is the mechanism that makes them transparent and modest in their living.
– During the past years people have been speaking about increasing the weight of taxes in the GDP, but this rate stays in the range of 17% in case when it is over 20% in Karabakh and Georgia. This indicator shows that the shady part of our economy is large.
– I agree with the point that the GDP/taxes indicator is the most important one and we must be able to have 0,3-0,4% improvement in this sector every year.
– Is it sufficient?
– It is what is planned by our interim spending plan. However, it is also important to know how taxes are collected and allocated. It should be equally distributed between companies and all companies must be equal for law. From this prospective we have a lot of things to do in order to solve the problem of oligopolies and make sure there are equal competition conditions.
– Do you see strong resistance on part of oligopolies in terms of collection taxes form them?
– Of course. We have dozens of disputes when the state bodies reveal violations but those people refuse to pay and apply to the court to change those decisions. This means that there is resistance.
– The penalties for violations are small and for example for Samvel Alexanyan’s companies it is not difficult to pay such penalties several times a year.
– Yes, the penalties are too small. But due to the adoption of new laws the situation has changed as after the adoption the committee in charge of such violations has already imposed sanctions equal to 100 million drams. I believe the committee will continue that way and will make companies be more responsible.
– Wouldn’t it be better to implement nota competition but anti-monopoly policy and use stronger tools for that purpose? It seems that the economic competition does not solve that problem.
– It is one of the functions of the economic competition protection committee, thus we should give this institutions strong tools as it is done in the EU. If a company has privileged commission, this institution makes them to sell a part of the property in order not to have monopolistic positions in the market. I think that phase by phase the committee will have those tools.
– Nairit company has problems again and there are rumors that it is connected with certain state officials.
– There are people who make efforts day and night to connect my name with the Nairit factory. This is done on purpose as they are trying to put some blame on me. I see this tendency and also violations connected with that company. First, they say that I am the owner of the Nairit company. It is a lie. There has not been and there is nothing like that. Second, they say that I have cut certain deals while being in office in the position of the president of the Intergovernmental Bank. This is a lie too. When I was the president of the board of the bank, not decision was made concerning the Nairit company. Third, the heads of the central banks of all states serve in the office of the bank board president according to the principle of rotation. If a central bank head takes that position, not all decision taken by him can concern his country. There are tools and an institution, due to which such decisions are taken collectively. This is not true and the purpose of these tales is to connect the processes happening to this company with the prime-minister. They are telling absolutely wrong and changed information. It is a fact that the Nairit has problems that need to be solved, but if they connect everything with my name, it is a problem and is done for certain purposes.
– They say that Nairit does not sell its caoutchouc and it is done through an artificially established company Inter-caoutchouc in order to give the most part of the money from caoutchouc to that company. This is where the financial problems of the factory come from.
– Nairit is a private organization that belongs to private companies. This means that there are owners who are responsible for the activity of the Nairit. After having some problems they were changing their owners and I don’t think it is right to connect that entire process that the company has not been able to solve the factory’s problems with one person. Even more, the head of the central bank could not solve problems connected with Nairit company.