Thursday, 26 February 2015
Border Communities Kept in Spotlight
A Cabinet sitting was held today, chaired by Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan.
The Government decided to allocate about 6.5 million drams to Tavush Marz administration in the first quarter of 2015 to provide State assistance to the residents of those houses and buildings damaged by the shelling of January 5-12, 2015.
“Dear colleagues, we are hereby indemnifying 134 households from Berkaber, Baghanis, Barekamavan, Kothi, Chinari and Paravakar villages for the loss of property. You are well aware that border communities are the center of our attention, and we must do everything so that the population in these communities did not have any problems whatsoever,” Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan said in this connection, adding that border community residents will be getting continued assistance.
Another decision was passed to entrust regional administrations with the task of reimbursing border community residents for natural gas, electricity bills, property and land tax payments, while the State Water Management Committee by the Ministry of Agriculture shall act as the chief manager to provide partial compensation for irrigation water fees.
The Prime Minister reminded that the Government had committed itself to fully or partially reimburse border community residents for electricity, gas, water fees, as well as for property tax amounts. The Government has allocated 928 million drams to this end.
The Minister of Energy and Natural Resources was tasked to ensure the settlement of over 1.5 billion drams to Gasprom-Armenia CJSC from the proceeds of Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources-affiliated State-owned companies’ disposable retained earnings left after the payment of profit tax as partial compensation for the specified amount of natural gas consumed by vulnerable households in the period from July 7, 2013 to December 31, 2014.
The Government amended one of its previous decisions to streamline the traffic and the imports of drugs from EEU-member States. The decision provides that medicines from said countries may be imported only upon inspection and receipt of a certificate of correspondence to rule out the traffic of counterfeit medicines.
The Prime Minister said that the issue had been raised during the presentation of Healthcare Ministry’s performance report and that the Ministry has a lot to do in terms of import and export of medicines not only from EEU-member countries, but also from third countries. Hovik Abrahamyan suggested taking up the matter with all relevant authorities in order to come to a consensus-based decision. “This should be deemed as a priority since we need to address the problems as quickly as possible, the more so that society remains sensitive to it,” the Prime Minister concluded.
The Government approved a program entitled “Cultural and educational support for CIS-based Armenian communities in 2015,” which seeks to develop reliable and efficacious Homeland-Diaspora relationship, promote the knowledge and use of the Armenian language, prop up the activities of educational, cultural and Armenian study centers in the Diaspora.
