The National Assembly finished their discussion on the budget of 2006. Finance and economy minister Vardan Khachatryan was disappointed. He didn’t even hide his disappointment from the press. He thinks that his ministry has presented a good document to the National Assembly, but they didn’t consider it the way they expected. This is the third time that the National Assembly discusses the budget and makes this kind of decision. The society did not really expect anything out of this, besides the minister. People know the intellectual level of our MPs. Now the government has to take the budget draft back to reconsider it. But I wonder what made the minister be so delighted with the budget draft. Armenian budget is made on the base of calculations in Armenian dram since 1996. Accordingly we can compare. During these last years the budget has increased (twice in comparison with 90s). The government has provided 451,884,907 k dram for budget expenses. The government is proud of this fact: this is the first time that the budget of Armenia exceeds 1 billion US dollars. But what kind of systematic changes have been made to the budget in comparison with the previous ones? By analyzing the structure we can understand which fields are encouraged by the government. They suggest comparing the budget of 1997. Also the reason is that the budget of 1997 was made by Kocharyan (he was the RA prime-minister then). The first important thing is that they have increased the expenses for state services. Our governors think that it is getting more difficult for them to realize their management in our country. So they ask 10,7% now instead of the previous 10%. In 1997 the risk of war was more that is why they provided about 20% from the budget for military expenses. And now they say that they spend more money for military purposes. But it turns out that the money they provide is only 16,5% of the budget. The financial support for public security has increased too, especially the support for police. They probably think that now we are more active and violate the law more often. The increase of expenses in this field can be evaluated with different political points of view. The other fields that are in the center of the attention of our government can be looked at as positive. For instance, the share for agricultural and transportation fields has been increased. The government will probably provide 19 billion dram for road constructions. Please note that they are going to provide this money not from the “Linsie” fund, but from the budget. It doesn’t matter how much they speak about the constructions in Armenia (especially in Yerevan), anyway we must agree that the situation regarding apartments and buildings is still very poor. The fact that there is no centralized heating seriously affects the conditions of big buildings. This is the reason that this kind of increase in communal economy is not a luxurious thing, but it is necessity. As a result of the policy of last years, the science system was affected much. Now everyone knows that our science is getting old. Scientific work is not attractive for young people because of the fact that they are not paid well. Post graduate studies have become a “nice shelter” for young people. i.e. they do this in order to not join the army. Everyone knows this, even the authorities. This is probably the reason that the government offers to provide 74 billion dram for science and education (16%). This is really the only reason that the finance and economy minister can be proud of. Of course if this sum is not decreased in the result of governmental discussions and reconsideration-since our MPs have a special approach to wasting and distributing money like Ostap Ibrahimovich did. But anyway they can’t decrease the sum estimated at the end of the budget expenses part (15.435 million dram). This is the money that is going to be spent to cover our governmental loans and interest rates next year. This is the distribution system of our state money in 2006.
