No one has a doubt that the state budget draft 2007 will be ratified by the Parliament. It will be ratified without tangible changes. This fact may also be named mutual agreement between the Parliament and the Government. Another option is that perhaps the NA doesn’t’t have sufficient professional and intellectual capacity to analyze such a serious document. Perhaps those two explanations are correct. But no explanation can ever change the picture. The 2007 budget anticipates 557,9 billion AMD expenditures. 75% of those are the current expenses, 25% are capital expenses. Compared to the expenditures of the last year they grew by 76 billion AMD. This growth created serious comments on the issue. Part of the experts, considering the practice of the previous years, assumes that the government will be able to fulfill its obligations. The administrative does whatever it anticipates. There are also political analyses. 2007 is an election year. Thus we may suppose that the government by showing large numbers does a populist step. But the truthfulness of this supposition can be checked only in a half of year. By planning general budget growth the government has proportionally dispersed all the extra money on all sectors. Next year’s budget registered changes only in 5 sectors. The allotment of defense sectors has rapidly grown. This is also understandable because of militant announcements of Azerbaijan. The fuel, agriculture sector expenditures have also grown. The health sector has been a hearth of permanent tremor over the period of past years. This tremor is a result of reforms. Next year the government promises free ambulatory policlinic medical aid to all citizens regardless of sex and age. Perhaps the experience of 2006 justified itself. It’s hard to tell in which aspect – population or healthcare sector. The Armenians whenever they afford prefer to pay the doctors. The Armenian doctors in their turn prefer to act like a “peddler” to the ones, who don’t pay. Thus, for them the budget 2007 provides more share. The large budget allotment to the agriculture sector becomes not very clear in the event of high taxation. For example, it’s planned to increase the subsidization of irrigation by 1,7 billion AMD. This may also have dual explanation. Prior to uniting the tax sector our authorities are trying to help the villagers as mush as possible. But I have a different opinion. Part of the high-rank statesmen have agricultural businesses. And this subsidization will serve them first of all. The expenditures for fuel grow in record indices. This sector instead of 4,8 billion AMD of 2006 is going to receive 17,2 billion AMD. As mentioned subsidization may be the most logical explanation to this. Next subsidization belongs to the least taxed sector of our state – construction. More accurately to say – cement production. This may also have a dual explanation. The last sector, which is being drastically changed, is the road, transport and communication sector. But the government has started saving money (compared to last year) by not giving much to this sector. The reduction of budget means is going to amount to 15 billion AMD. Instead of 41,5 billion AMD of 2006, 26,5 billion AMD will be allotted. The “Summarized description of budget 2007”, which our deputies voted for doesn’t explain at the expense of what sector these savings are made. In parallel with the growth of 2007 state budget expenses our Parliament loses its interest to the documents, which endorse it. And this becomes more noticeable year by year. 5-10 years ago, when the budget was 2-3 times less, Parliamentary hearings were more thorough. Now the NA has receded its place of discussing laws to government or the Central Bank. By alienating itself from lawmaking process the Parliament has converted into a primitive body, which only staples the decided and determined decisions. It’s a body, the “stapled” laws of which are recognized unconstitutional one by one by the Constitutional Court of Armenia. And even the draft budget discussion cannot raise the reputation of the government.
