The time is an interesting thing. It can change everything, including the attitude of people by 180 degrees to this or that phenomenon. For example, at the end of the last year, the government of Armenia headed by Tigran Sargsyan had an emphasized indifferent attitude to the global economic crisis. He was ignoring this crisis so much that would prefer not to speak about that. But today the crisis is mentioned everywhere and the fact that the government is not fulfilling its promises, is stipulated by the crisis. Moreover, the crisis gave certain lessons to the government. And the government has learned those lessons. However, in the country besides the executive branch there is also the legislative branch. And the government has decided to share its learned lessons with the NA MPs. Moreover, it was done with all the rules of the education practice. The exact material was provided and then a lot of revision was done so that they don’t forget what had been learned. It is very hard to explain this any other way because in the same venue (National Assembly) in 20 days Tigran Sargsyan repeated the same thing with almost no change.
Segment from the speech of Tigran Sargsyan, the lessons of October 30, 2009.
First of all the crisis exposed the most vulnerable sides of our economy:
– The economy has a low level of diversification and we feel insufficiency of “long money” and the absence of institutes. This reduces the possibilities of diversification.
– In the economy of the country there are oligopolies and a low competition field. We fix this in the roughness of prices. This is a serious challenge for us.
– In the state governance system there are incomplete motivation mechanisms.
– In the education and healthcare sectors fundamental issues require solutions.
It is quite understandable that our actions in 2010 will be aimed at resolving these issues.
Segment from the speech of RA prime minister Tigran Sargsyan, RA NA, November 18, 2009
And so which were the lessons of 2009? First of all the crisis has even more emphasized the vulnerable points of our economy. The economy has a low level of diversification and we feel insufficiency of “long money” and the absence of institutes. This reduces the possibilities of diversification. Secondly, in the economy of the country there are oligopolies and a low competition field. We fix this in the roughness of prices. This is a serious challenge for us. In the state governance system there are incomplete motivation mechanisms. Fourth, in the education and healthcare sectors fundamental issues require solutions. We have an assignment from the president of the country to conduct radical measures to resolve these issues in 2010. Let us mention that in his last speech the prime minister has mentioned another lesson. “We should speed up the slow process of economic reforms.” In general, it is hard to explain that has made Tigran Sargsyan to copy-paste his two speeches. He doesn’t have any problems with good words. Many of the others in government would be jealous of Tigran Sargsyan’s ability to express eloquent words. The only explanation is that the prime minister doubts the mental abilities of the NA MPs and by repeating the same thing he makes them understand that in our country there are oligopolies and low level of competition in the country. It is really hard to remember and understand this and it takes certain time and repetition. Let us mention that in the two speeches there are also differences. And that is the political status of Sargsyan. During the first speech he was non-partisan. And during the second one he was already a Republican Party member. And perhaps in the aspect of contents it is not so important. As of the lessons it seems that the government has learned those but is lingering to apply. On October 19 the government decided to allot 500 thousand USD to construction. They have made a decision to prevent the expected criticism. “This is one of the decisions, which deserves the criticism of our oppositionists. They blame us of supporting the construction sector. Seems that the constructors are the enemies of our nation,” said the prime minister, who a day ago was speaking of the low level of the diversification of the economy.