Wednesday, 8 May 2013
New Cabinet Out To Work
In anticipation of today’s Cabinet sitting, President Serzh Sargsyan met with the Prime Minister and the new Cabinet members to congratulate on appointment and wish them every success. On behalf of the government, Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan thanked the President for high confidence and assured that everything will be done to meet the challenges facing the country.
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The first new Cabinet sitting was chaired by Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan.
First, the meeting approved amendments to the laws on government organization and public service, suggesting that the Cabinet should be completed with the post of Minister-Chief of Government Staff.
According to the Prime Minister, this is a political decision as approved by the Republican Party of Armenia. “At the same time, this implies increased workload for the Chief of Government Staff. Mr. Gabrielyan will coordinate a few new activities, including the reforms in education, healthcare and public sectors calling for cross-sector efforts. This stems from the ideology voiced by the President, which finds it appropriate to operate structural changes and increase the number of deputy prime ministers in order to better organize our work, especially in the areas where we face cross-cutting activities of several ministries and where there is need for coordinated action. I suggest you to consider this legislative initiative as of top priority. The bill will be submitted to the National Assembly in the manner established by law.
The Institute of Geological Sciences by the National Academy of Sciences was granted an extension on the temporary import tax regime through June 2016. The Institute has signed a memorandum on geological studies with Taiwan’s Sinika Academy under which it has imported receivers for geo-positioning equipment, antennas and seismometers. The above devices are currently being used to carry out geodynamic monitoring.
Gegharkunik Marz administration was allocated AMD200mn to tackle several priority issues in a number of local communities. The meeting passed another decision to funnel the funds saved during implementation of civil work-related activities in the regions toward solving the problems of primary importance.
With another decision, the government made a redistribution in the 2013 State budget, allocating 3 million drams to the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs in order to organize the mounting, as well as the home delivery to needy disabled persons of 500 Phoenix Union-imported disability carts. The carriages will be distributed according to the list established by the Ministry.
The Executive agreed to the proposal on signing a CIS agreement on mutual recognition of higher and vocational training certificates.
Wrapping up the meeting, Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said, “I would like to avail myself of this opportunity to congratulate our citizens on the nationwide holiday of May 9. Convinced that the liberation of Shushi opened up a new chapter in the history of the Armenian people, I feel that the first of all congratulations should be addressed to our freedom fighters who contributed in person to this victory.”
