Is it possible for an adult to survive for one month with 25,000 drams in Armenia? This is the average pension our state gives to pensioners. Can the official be in their place at least for several days instead of speaking beautiful toasts?
Journalists asked this question to the former chief of social protection services Vazgen Khachikyan one month ago. In answer to this question he said, “It is a provocative question and I don’t think that any official may try to survive with stipend. Fortunately we have a society, which relies on social partnership and solidarity, where the rich help the poor, the healthy help the sick, and children help their parents. Thanks to God we are not in a situation yet when pensioners are alone and their children don’t help them. Certainly it will be very hard for those who try to survive with that stipend, but let’s not forget that every state and every country pays as much as their opportunities are.” At that time there was no information about the findings of the supervisory committee, thus he could give such answer. Now, when there is information about the embezzlement reaching several millions, the essence of this idea changes.
By a coincidence on the same day when the official statement concerning his resignation was released, on December 7, the national statistics service published a report entitled “Armenia’s social picture and freedom 2010”. When we read this report, the violations committed by Vazgen Khachikyan become more evident.
“In 2009 the poverty level increased compared to 2008. In 2009 the 34.1% of the population was poor, the 20.1% was very poor, and 3.6% was extremely poor. Only during one year 214 thousand people became poor, as a result of which in 2009 the number of the poor reached 1,1 million, 245 thousand people became very poor, and 65 thousand of them became extremely poor, as a result of which in 2009 the number of extremely poor people reached 117 thousand,” writes the report.
According to the statistics methodology, those people are considered poor who consume less than the limit for adults, i.e. those who are not able to afford the minimum basket of goods, which according to the standard of 2009 makes 38.273 drams.
The authors of the report have also tried to find out how much it would cost to overcome the poverty in Armenia. According to the report, in order to overcome the poverty Armenia will need 93.5 billion drams or the 3% of the GDP in addition to the resources allotted for social support. It will require about 2.5 billion drams or the 0,1% of the GDP to overcome the extreme poverty, in addition to the social support allotted to the extremely poor.
The authors of the report write that even if the money for overcoming the poverty is raised, it will be possible to cope with poverty only in case if the social aids and support really reach the targeted groups, i.e. the poor. “The international experience shows that it is almost impossible to excellently address the social support to the poor, thus more resources are needed for poverty reduction,” writes the report.
We don’t understand why they refer to the international experience if the domestic experience is more noteworthy. The resources should be allotted through the institution in charge of that function, i.e. the ministry of social protection. It is even scary to imagine how these resources have been or can be allotted by state officials.
Let’s make a simple calculation. According to the media, due to Khachikyan’s efforts the state paid pensions to 50-60 thousand dead people. There are rumors that as a result of this machination about 1-1.5 billion drams was embezzled every month. Even if this money is exaggerated, still it would be enough to ove4rcome the extreme poverty in Armenia. We know that our people prefer their personal interests rather than their responsibilities and the ambitions to make a lot of money are making them to embezzle the money of the poor. Even the official statistics shows this fact. “Calculations show that in the condition of the economic growth in 2004-2008 the poor are in more favorable situation, but not so much as the rich. However in conditions of the world economic crisis the one to suffer much is the poor, and the rich continue getting money during crisis too,” writes the report.