Wednesday, 7 March 2012
Government’s Consistency Pays Off
A Cabinet sitting was held today, chaired by Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan.
The Prime Minister reminded that the previous meeting had looked into the recent rise in book prices, clarifying that legislative changes had nothing to do with the hike-up. The State Committee on Economic Competition Protection had been told to take up the matter and submit a finding. The head of the commission said the study had shown that the markup was mainly due to a misinterpretation of tax laws by economic entities.
Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan suggested following up on the matter pending new developments on the book market.
Turning to the Minister of Healthcare, the Prime Minister said the program of temporary fielding of physicians to the provinces proved successful. “Both the trips to the countryside and the Ministry’s annual report for 2011 testify that our doctors are long-awaited in marzes. A timetable has to be drafted for 2012 so that people know when they can see the fielded doctors.”
The government amended a previous decree to provide for the continuity of “Subsidy for interest in agricultural lending” program, as well as to develop a model contract to ensure that lending is provided in line with the legislation.
”This is just the decision by which we are going to disburse extra 7.5 billion drams for the spring sowing campaign,” the Prime Minister reminded and stressed, “The spring activities will start in April. This is a long-awaited decision especially as you may know that we offer cost-effective diesel fuel and fertilizers to our farmers and the proposed financial support will help them carry out the needed payments.”
Making redistributions in the 2012 State budget law and amending a previous decision, the government allocated AMD 219,491,900 to the State Committee on Immovable Property Cadastre by the Government to settle the cost of the server as needed to ensure online circulation of documents on State registration of property rights and restrictions.
“Yesterday we were at the cadastre and I should note that drastic improvements have been made in there. Our citizens do not even believe to enjoy such high-quality services in the Republic of Armenia, up to best possible standards. I look forward to getting a positive feedback from the citizens over the coming months as they are starting to use this service. Some 400 thousand citizens are expected to communicate annually with the system of cadastre. Now, we have an embedded electronic system, electronic records, transparent oversight, and this can be considered as one of our successful projects.”
The meeting went on to back a set of draft amendments to the Civil Code and the law on State registration of property rights in an effort to provide a legal framework for registration of the citizens’ rights to buildings in construction.
“As a matter of fact, hundreds of our citizens have taken an unjustified risk and seem to be disappointed as they can neither get an apartment, nor a reimbursement. Legal proceedings were launched to see what kind of offences had been made in this case. This mechanism is meant to actually rule out the recurrence of such adverse phenomena,” the Prime Minister said.
The meeting discussed and passed decisions over a total of 40 issues.
