Two days ago the RA Ministry of Finances publicized the brief description of the state Budget 2009 for January-May. The numbers are really sad. The incomes of the budget amounted to 244.7 billion AMD. Compared to the same period of the previous year the incomes of the state budget decreased by 13.5% or by 37.5 billion AMD. The taxes and customs fees, which amount to 77.4% of the revenue, have decreased in a more tangible way – 19.2% or by 45 billion AMD. As the statement of the Ministry reads during January-May of 2009 over 189.3 billion AMD worth taxes were input in the state budget. During the first quarter it was planned to gather 257.9 billion AMD worth taxes and fees. It turns out that the government has to gather 68.6 billion AMD in July in order to complete the quarterly plan. It’s far from possibility because according to the data of the past 5 months the average monthly taxes amounted to 37.8 billion AMD. There is no necessity to delve into these numeral details. This already shows where the economy is. In this background it becomes clearer why the Prime Minister of Armenia was urging the Ministers to help the State Revenue Committee. However, only by squeezing taxes the economy will appear in a worse shape and they understand all this in government pretty well. And the fulfillment of quarterly and annual projects will be impossible merely due to taxes and customs fees. And this became obvious from the words of the Prime Minister (during one of the last sessions of the government). During the session he was saying that the macroeconomic indices will deteriorate. And in this case the only saving link was the means from abroad. The means will be used to cover the economy deficit and saving the economic situation in general. In this background it becomes clear why the government is striving to receive the loans as soon as possible even with unfavorable conditions. The miserable tax input indices come to prove that if not the foreign money the state won’t be able to pay pensions and budgetary salaries. Indeed, the government would let this happen because besides the human factor this also risks to turn into social riot. Let us return to loans. Many people slam the operation of the government by saying that it’s wrong to put the generations into such big debts. However, the specialists of the sector insist that the amount of the foreign debt of Armenia is in the framework of permissible limits. In this regard everything is OK. For the sake of integrity let us mention that under these circumstances the state doesn’t have any other choice other than tempering the global crisis at the expense of foreign funds. Such activities are implemented by a number of EU member states. In fact the problem is whether the money will serve the right purpose or not. If the steps of the government don’t bring use it will turn out that billions of dollars will be lost and the whole burden of debts will be on the shoulders of young generations. Why is there no sufficient confidence that the government will be able to overcome the crisis? Let us first mention that even social polls prove the lack of confidence of the society directed to the society. For example, as a result of the polls conducted by the National Marketing Association 60% of the respondents think that the government is marring the information related to the global crisis. As of the attitude of the society to the government 34% of the respondents expressed their lack of confidence, 4% detestation and 27% showed indifference to the government. It means that the majority of the society doesn’t trust the government. This is a quite serious issue because without trust any step of the government is subject to failure. Let us return to the question as to why people don’t trust the government. In October of the last year T. Sargsyan was speaking about the crisis with contempt. He advised people not to pay attention to that as it wouldn’t affect us. But today, the polls show that only 8% of the population said that the crisis didn’t affect them. It turns out that the remaining 92% of the population have serious grounds not to trust the government. One of the grounds of not believing in the anti-crisis steps is that enormous funds are directed to construction sector. The impression is that the government is trying to first of all save the businesses of its loyalists. And finally the only official report on how the crisis should be overcome is the report of the Prime Minister submitted at the end of the last year (during the presentation of the state budget at the NA). After that there had been some drastic changes and even the government confessed that the events develop in a worse case scenario than they had predicted. But the formal ground of actions still remains the project, which anticipates a 9.2% growth. In this regard the behavior of the RA Ministry of Economy is noteworthy. It seems that this body should have been the most initiative one. It should have proposed realistic steps to save the economy and should have forgotten about the previous exaggerated numbers. But when somebody goes to the website of the mentioned ministry the impression is that the staffers of this body are busy only meeting foreign guests and participating in discussions with abstruse terminology. They are so busy that cannot refresh the information on their website, which show the macroeconomic indices of January-September of 2008 with a 10.4% economic growth. Or maybe they are doing all this on purpose to transmit positive impulses to the society. And as you know positive signals repel the crisis just like in the famous anecdote – claps to the crocodiles.
