Finally the elected elite of the nation adopted the state budget 2010 with 82 for votes, 16 against and 1 abstainer. Having done this they consider that they are done with their duty; they closed the session and went to celebrate their holidays with a peaceful conscience.
Let us remember that the final version of the budget essentially differs from the tentative one in the lines of expenditures and revenues. According to the state budget the expenditures will amount to 935.5 billion AMD (75 billion AMD more from the draft version); the revenues will amount to 742 billion AMD (65.5 billion AMD than the draft version). As a result the amount of the deficit will grow up to 10.4 billion and amount to 193.4 billion AMD. In regard of the tax revenues instead of the preliminary 533 billion AMD, 570 billion AMD will be provided. Indeed the 16 against votes were registered due to the opposition MPs – the Heritage and the ARF. The ARF substantiated its standpoint with the fact that most of their recommendations haven’t been included. And as A. Bakhshyan mentioned the Heritage voted against the draft because of the accumulated debts and inefficient expenditures. Indeed the Legal State and the Prosperous Armenia voted for the draft. Aram Safaryan, who was presenting the viewpoint of the Prosperous Armenia, according to the official information placed on the NA website, signified the growth of funds aimed for the defense sector and the financial aid anticipated for the NKR. And the Legal State was mainly complimented by the fact that over 50 of their recommendations regarding road construction, school construction in the rural communities, were mainly taken into account. Hovhannes Margaryan has spoken about that as well. And one year ago when the draft budget 2009 was being discussed the viewpoint of the party was presented by Heghine Bisharyan, who mentioned that the recommendations of the Legal State on school construction, road construction in rural communities were taken into account. As you see the Legal State is stable with formulations and priorities. The ARF has tried to approach in a so-called more conceptual manner, by saying that the long-term and mid-term prospects of the country development are not reflected in the budget. In the opinion of Vahan Hovhannisyan the budget is not initiative; it doesn’t provide the growth of prior and secondary incomes of the population; doesn’t stimulate the development of medium and small businesses. In this case everything is also very interesting. So in this case the ARF is concerned not only with the prospects of the next year but also what’s going to be to our economy in 3, 5, 10 and 20 years. Very praiseworthy. And at the end of November 2008 when the crisis was already outlined the ARF voted for the budget, which was anticipating a 9% economic growth. Nonetheless, regardless of how convincing and substantiated the standpoints of the abovementioned factions are, those don’t play a drastic role as a whole. It is connected with a simple reason that the Republican Party of Armenia has 68 representatives in the parliament. The RPA voted for the budget and it was enough for the document to be adopted. In other words, the National Assembly in the face of the RPA believed in the words of Tigran Sargsyan and his government.
One can be jealous with this trust. Even it is amazing because one year ago Tigran Sargsyan said in the parliament, “The government has provided the Central Bank Armenian-German fund with 17 billion dram to provide credits to small and medium businesses. These resources will create thousands of vacancies in Armenia, which is very important for 2009.” Did this promise come true? Of course no. Let’s not speak about big projects such as the Iran-Armenia railway, All-Armenian bank, a new atomic station, etc. In fact nothing has been done but still the republican party trusts the government.
Everything is not so smooth as it may seem to be. During his speech on the budget the speaker Hovik Abrahamyan touched upon Tigran Sargsyan’s announcement that the economy of Armenia is oligopoly. “Yes, economic monopolies are a serious obstacle on the way to a developed economy, and as the speaker I have numerously said and I am saying one more time that there should be equal competition in the economic sector, i.e. the rules should be the same for all the participants and there should not be any privileges for anyone. In other words, there should not be economic monopolies. However, as the speaker of the parliament I would like to ask the government whether the law does not provide the necessary mechanisms and tools to solve this problem, and even if there is a need for other additional tools, has the parliament ever refused to adopt any law proposed by the parliament for the solution of this problem? The last draft law was the draft concerning the taxation institution, which was adopted by the parliamentarian majority. Of course, the existing legislation provides the necessary tools to regulate the economic relations, but if the government believe that they need other tools, let them remind us any case when they applied with a proposal and the parliament failed to adopt or rejected. I don’t remember such case.”
In fact Hovik Abrahamyan says that they have approved whatever they received. In other words they did their job. “Concerning the necessary financial resources, the government has received them from several international agreements we have verified,” said Hovik Abrahamyan. In fact, if the government fails the program next year too, they will not be able to blame anybody of that failure. Even the new membership of Tigran Sargsyan in the RPA cannot save them. It is very hard to fail because no one can forget the ambitious promises and speeches of the government.