Thursday, 11 November 2010
The program to be more accessible to rural youth
At today’s cabinet sitting, the Government decided to amend the Affordable Housing for Young Families program to the benefit of rural youth.
According to these changes, the general quota of State subsidy for rural areas is up to 4 % instead of former 2 %, the size of advance payment is down to 10 % instead of former 30 %. Besides, in parallel to collaterals guarantees will be accepted from those companies included in the list of 300 top taxpayer entities.
At the press conference that followed the sitting, Minister of Finance Tigran Davtyan noted that these changes imply a real support on the part of the State. By calculations of the ministry, the interest rate of mortgage lending in marzes will make some 6,5-7 %, which is rather a good rate from the standpoint of international standards.
“When several months ago the Government approved this program, we said that we were going to establish appropriate criteria, however, depending on the process of realization of the program, these criteria would be subject to indexation and harmonization with the “real-time” market demand,” the minister said adding that the program was being carried out in full. AMD 1.1 billion worth refinancing and some 137 facilities were said to have been made available at this point.
In the words of Tigran Davtyan, the program is effective, and the circle of beneficiaries is increasing from month to month.
“Today’s changes are aimed at further activation of the process in marzes. As expected, the load shifted to Yerevan as a result of said 137 loans, and the share of marzes was insufficient: 99 facilities were given to youth in the capital city, and only 38 to marz inhabitants. This did not meet our target. The purpose of today’s decision is to create additional incentives and better terms for rural youth.. These changes meet the government’s policy line on proportional territorial development of communities,” the minister said.
As part of the agenda, the concept of public strategy of internal financial control was discussed concerning which the Minister of Finance presented his comments.
During the meeting with journalists, the Minister of Finance said that it was a key institutional scheme which should be introduced in the system of governance. As he said, this concept is based on long debates and expert estimates. EU experts and various international structures were said to have been involved in this process.
The approved version is in conformity with the European criteria. The concept assumes that a system of internal audit should be introduced in public governance. It implies 3 basic functions: finance administration, control and independent internal audit. The latter will provide for financial control, transparency and efficient control of financial resources,” the minister advised.
According to Togran Davtyan, a chief purpose is to ensure that the scheme is coordinated on a centralized basis with de-centralized circuit of implementation.
“The Ministry of Finance will provide coordinated system management: it will be a methodical type of management, monitoring and control. That is the Ministry of Finance will establish the game rules supervising at the same time general compliance with these rules. Nonetheless, internal audit in any structure shall be carried out on a de-centralized and independent basis. In this sense, they will have more freedom and greater share of responsibility,” the minister said and expressed hope that the introduction of the system will lead to increased efficiency in the work of State agencies.
