Yesterday Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan answered journalists’ questions in the National Assembly.
– Mr. Prime Minister the National Assembly did not adopt the draft legislation about “Limited Cash Transactions” and the Prosperous Armenia imposed a boycott. How would you comment on the PA excuses, as per which that legislation would affect the poor people’s pockets and would enrich the local banks.
– The statement about harming the poor is an absolute lie. The purpose of this legislation is to control cash circulation during big transactions and make them more transparent. When I say big transactions I mean all the transactions above 3 million AMD, and 95% of our society never performs similar transactions in the course of a year. If the RA citizen is purchasing furniture from the store costing more than 3 million AMD, he has to purchase that furniture on bank transfer. This will enable to control the profit received from the deal in future, so that the store also would include that transaction in its accounting reports and would pay all the taxes. The most efficient way to struggle in shadow economics is to reduce the cash transactions. The statement that this is made to contribute to financial system and enrich the local banks does not correspond to reality. It is right the opposite, as this legislation would put an extra burden on the banks, which would make them to install terminals in the service centers on their own financial resources, and moreover to make that service free of cost.
– How would you comment on your coalition colleague’s steps of boycotting the draft legislation?
– I want to mention that we have to be extremely respectful with our colleagues and opponents. This is our attitude towards them. Our colleagues want to emphasize this issue, and use all the tools they have. And naturally we try to respond them in our turn. I think the best mark to that action was given by the NA with its current activities, with more than 10 legislations.
– Are you going to discuss that legislation in the NA once again?
– I think that issue still exists in the political arena, because no written or oral proposal has been made in the NA about this or that article of the legislation. We have not received such observations or suggestions. This means that that issue is now in the political arena; hence we will discuss that issue in political arena itself.
– Russian officials actively visit Armenia, so do the Armenian officials visit Russia. Are those visits initially planned, or they have pre-electoral explanation?
– I could assume that our partner’s visit would be commented as in the framework of pre-electoral routine, and that the ARP seeks support from the RF. However, I have to mention, that if we summarize the last 4 years, we will see that those relationships have been developing and flowing on their natural current. Particularly, dozens of issues have been discussed in the scope inter-governmental commission. Many new initiatives have been recorded, which were very important for us, such as creating a free economic zone, which was declared by the way. Together with my colleague Mr. Levitin, we visited the area which covers the first free economic zone, and first investment programs.
– How the RPA is going to stand in front of public in the upcoming elections among the continuous inflation and poverty? And why is RPA so confident about being the favorite during the parliamentary elections?
– That confidence is coming from people. You also follow different types of surveys and polls about the attitude towards this or that political party. We are going to stand in front of public with open forehead, as the RPA has been honest during all those years. We have always spoken about the existing issues, and have never hidden anything from people. All our achievements and mistakes have been under your strongest supervision.
– The social service published the initial data of the last population census, according to which 170 thousand people left Armenia forever, and around 500 thousand left and nobody knows whether they will return or not, compared to the previous results. Isn’t this a migration, and do you foresee any projects preventing that migration?
– First of all we have to express our political standpoints. It is unacceptable for us when any Armenian person or a family is leaving the country forever. This means that we have to create an atmosphere which does not encourage migration. If we refer to the dynamics of the last 20 years, we will see that unfortunately, our society really suffers from this “disease.” But in the same time we can state, that if we compare it with the first years of independence, we will see that migration has sharply decreased. And as for the dynamics of the last 5 years, we can see that global crisis created this negative environment and contributed to that largely. Overcoming the crisis reduced the migration temp. The very first reason mentioned by the Armenian citizens is the problem of unemployment. This means that the most efficient way to overcome the migration is to create and realize such state programs which would create new modern working posts. I agree with you that we need to make a complex national project aimed at solving this problem completely.
– In your opinion, who should be on the first post of the proportional electoral list?
– People standing on the last places should come forward (says jokingly, A.A.). In my opinion the most important thing is the ideology of our party the election participation. Our citizens will follow our program principles, and to what we propose the voter, what will be the changes to improve the people’s life. Personally I don’t differentiate between who is going to be on the first or second post of the proportional electoral list.
– Haven’t your colleagues ever argued about which concept to introduce? Many different internal talks appear in the press.
– I would rather disagree with that point of yours. Certainly we had such people in our party team, but the basic core of our team is more interested about our programs. As a proving fact I would like to mention the conference we had recently, during which all our colleagues attentively came to know about the general report of government activities. That was also the same economic workshop, when we organized open discussions about our achievements, failures and future plans.
– The President’s statement that the business should be separated from politics created an impression that the number of businessmen will be cut on the RPA list. However, the statements of the recent period speak of the opposite. Do you support the idea that the businessmen should come to the parliament and submit the duties of legislators?
– There will be no businessmen on the RPA list.
– Will the businessmen run on the majoritarian system?
– It is too soon to answer this question because we don’t know who’s going to be nominated. This may be the wish of the RA citizens and anybody can run in the framework of the law. There will be no famous businessmen on our list anymore. The President has clearly pointed that out and we will follow it.
– Recently the government has decided to entrust Flash fuel company to provide cheap fuel to villagers. It is known that the director of Flash is your friend. Don’t you think that this has certain corruption elements?
– Are you trying to say that the Prime Minister cannot have close friends because it contains corruption risks? The directors of all the 6 other fuel companies also have close relations with me. You don’t write about that though. Why we picked Flash? I have particularly adverted to this matter during the government session as I knew the media would bring this up. At present the state bodies receive fuel in the framework of the agreement, which is signed with the ministry of finances based on the law on purchases. We have agreements will all the 6 companies that bid for the agreement and were selected. And one of them is Flash. And the selection was made by the ministry of finances based on the prices proposed by them during the past months. As Flash had proposed the lowest price the ministry chose to sign the contract with them. Secondly, this company took on the responsibility to deliver the fuel to the communities, which requires extra funds. The company creates better conditions for us. Therefore, having taken account these objective reason we have conducted this process maximally transparently.
– Do you and Hovik Abrahamyan have quotas on the RPA list? Don’t you participate in the process of formation of the list?
– I do participate but don’t have any quotas.
– Are the rumors true that the list will be led by Serzh Sargsyan, followed by you, Samvel Nikoyan and Hovik Abrahamyan?
– I think I already gave a satisfactory response to your question.