Thursday, 18 April 2013
Ministers To Shoulder Greater Responsibility
A Cabinet sitting was held today, chaired by acting Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan.
Pursuant to the President’s decree on 2013 spring call-up and demobilization campaign, the Government decided to set up a central military draft board to streamline conscription activities, as well as regional (including Yerevan) committees to provide for due coordination of the spring campaign in the regions. In addition, the Government approved the staffing of the central medical commission.
Based on the law on procurements, the Government amended one of its earlier decisions relating to the procurement procedure. Acting Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said the decision was adopted in compliance with the bid of numerous SNCOs and government agencies seeking authority to make direct procurements for up to one million dram worth of goods and equipment.
Another decision was adopted to establish technical specifications and maximum prices for some types of goods purchased by government department and public agencies.
Either this decision was commented on by the acting head of government. “All the ministers must keep this procedure under control as they are personally responsible for the problem. The Ministry of Finance has finalized the list of those articles we procure year by year - water, meat, pens, potatoes, fuel and so on. A stricter filter will henceforth be applied to determine the product types beyond which no procurements can be made. You will have to justify your choice, if you want to buy something specific, say a special kind of pen or paper. This is quite a tough arrangement as it rules out any purchase of goods at unreasonably high cost and puts the responsibility on the ministers.
The government established a procedure to follow while finalizing the citizens’ individual (personal) database, including for submittal of the 2012 data to the competent authority and incorporating them in the State pension system, as well as addressing inaccuracies in the applicable mechanisms.
The meeting approved the proposal on making redistributions in the loan agreement on Yerevan combined cycle power unit construction project, which was signed between the Government of Armenia and the Japanese Bank of International Cooperation in 2005.
The Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs was allocated over AMD 1.5mn for transfer to Armenia’s badminton and chess federations for participation in the first international school sports festival of CIS-member countries due to be held this April 21 to 27 in Moscow.
The Ministry was provided AMD28mn to make available to Armenia’s national archery federation for hosting the second round of the European Grand Prix in Echmiadzin from May 27 through June 1, 2013.
