Tuesday, 17 March 2015
Ministry of Territorial Administration and Emergency Situations Submits 2014 Performance Report
Chaired by Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan, the Government continued to discuss annual performance reports submitted by central executive bodies in line with the Government’s action plan, priorities and assessed performance for the year 2014. In particular, reports were today submitted by Minister of Territorial Administration and Emergency Situations Armen Yeritsyan, First Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration and Emergency Situations Vache Terteryan and Head of State Migration Service Gagik Yeganyan.
It was reported that in order to solve problems a number of communities during the reporting period, the State budget allocated a total of AMD 6 billion in 2014, which was primarily used to build and rebuild schools, roads and implement other priority tasks. The Government adopted second four-year socioeconomic development programs for 2015-2018 for the following territorial-administrative divisions: Armavir, Ararat, Aragatsotn, Kotayk and Vayots-Dzor Marzes.
The municipal budgets stated receipts amounting to AMD 113.98 billion against the planned 115.34 billion (performance 98.8%) in 2014. As compared to 2013, revenue collection increased by 7.9% or 8.34 billion drams last year.
The government compensated the additional costs of communities due to increased minimum wage threshold and electricity prices. This will be the case in 2015, too.
In addition, the government reimburses the municipal budget-funded community-based non-profit and community organizations who were born after January 1, 1974, the minimum wage for workers with payment of additional fees for targeted social spending was reported in 2014.
The process of community consolidation was reported to have been continued in 2014. In particular, all relevant draft legal acts necessary for the implementation of pilot projects were developed and discussed with Council of Europe experts.
During the reporting period, administrative supervision was carried out in 232 communities. The Ministry exercised control over Marz Governors’ activities aimed at eliminating the shortfalls and irregularities revealed.
In the field of emergency situations, there were planned, organized and conducted various trainings and exercises. The Rescue Service carried out 16 thousand 319 operations last year, with 6 thousand 202 operations executed for fire-fighting purposes, 2 thousand 961 facilities and buildings were subjected to expertise.
Work has been done in the regions bordering communities firefighter positions, as well as communication and alarm systems modernization, uninterrupted communication in the organization of large-scale works were carried out to establish the regional crisis management centers opened to the rescue department and the government of the State Emergency Service Crisis management centers, crisis management center was established in the hail stations located in the center of a unified management system.
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Ministry signed a protocol on landslide disaster management in Armenia and in the month of August the “Republic of Armenia landslide disaster management” three-year program was launched. Work was continued toward the establishment of an Armenian-Russian joint humanitarian response center.
The national catalog of earthquakes was supplemented with 526 earthquake data. Work was carried out to inspect the technical condition and assess the seismic vulnerability of 221 buildings.
Throughout 2014, the central headquarters of the “911” service received 1 million 349 thousand 602 calls. 11 thousand 768 emergencies were registered nationwide in the period under review.
Two priority projects were planned and implemented in the field of migration. In particular, the National Action Plan was adopted consisting of 78 measures. New standards were developed for the processing of requests of asylum filed by foreign nationals. During the discussion, reference was made to migration flows, the citizens of the Russian Federation, access to the solution of the problems and their works.
Summing up the discussion, Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan expressed confidence that the merger of the Ministries of Territorial Administration and Emergency Situations will give a positive result.
The Prime Minister stressed the importance of the role of local authorities in the management process, the strengthening and development of local self-government bodies. Hovik Abrahamyan stressed that in 2015 the Government will continue to keep in spotlight the border communities in order to find solutions to their problems.
