Thursday, 10 May 2012
Welfare Issues In Spotlight
A Cabinet sitting was held today, chaired by Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan.
The Government urged the ministers and the heads of other government agencies to take note of the results of the annual report of the Ministry of Finance on control over the 2011 budget performance and take the necessary measures to address and rule out the reported shortfalls.
Summarizing the findings of 112 inspections conducted in 2011, the Financial Oversight Inspectorate of Ministry of Finance Staff has recovered AMD 9.070.400bn and rescheduled AMD 2.316.760bn, recorded in 2008-2011.
The Prime Minister stressed the fact that the Inspection mainly focused on the social sector in 2011, addressing the shortfalls recorded in the pension payment system.
Amending a previous decree entitled “On mitigation of natural gas tariffs for vulnerable households,” the Executive decided to pursue the specified policy in the period from April 1, 2012 through March 31, 2013. According to the amendment, needy families will be charged 30% less for 300 cubic meters of gas consumed in this period at the rate of 32 thousand drams for 1,000 cubic meters.
The Prime Minister reminded that the given decision had been adopted on the President’s instruction to mitigate the impact of natural gas price-hikes on vulnerable households. “As a matter of fact, the needy groups were saved a good deal of expense due to the rise in gas tariffs. By offering a one-year extension for this arrangement, we are actually smoothing the negative impact they might face in this respect.”
The Ministry of Agriculture was allocated AMD 615,896,900mn under the government’s livestock-breeding development program in 2012. Using the aforementioned resources, available from the partnership fund of the Japanese government’s “Grant support for needy farmers” program, 475 heads of pedigree heifers will be imported from abroad to be used for selective breeding purposes.
Tigran Sargsyan considered it necessary to strengthen control over the beneficiary farms to avoid delay in long-term repayments since the money so collected could be used for development purposes.”
The meeting decided to register as public property residential buildings NN 25, 33, 34 in Maralik town of Shirak Marz, which were built for the homeless and lonely elderly with funds available from the treasury. Those buildings will be offered to the lonely elderly and homeless persons from other needy groups in the manner established by law. Another decision was passed to allocate money for the procurement of 59 pieces of furniture for the apartments.
“We are consistently building up a welfare housing estate. The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs will have a very good housing stock over the next 3-4 years and will be in a position to properly address the social problems,” Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan stated.
The government decided to donate to the Spitak town community a plot of land enclosed with by-roads in the Masters’ District of Spitak town of Lori marz. The site will be deemed as a stand-alone urban development facility subject to special regulation, which will rule out the possibility of implementing irregular urban development activities.
