2024-08-25 10:45:39
A consultation was held under the leadership of Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, during which issues related to the current state of the state budget, the tax collection process, and the 2022 budget project were discussed.
At the beginning of the consultation, Nikol Pashinyan noted: “Today we have to discuss the state of our budget affairs, we also have to start planning the process of forming the 2022 budget project. Overall, our budgetary affairs are not bad and tax revenue collections are being carried out at a progressive pace. Now it is obvious that we will exceed the tax revenues in the second quarter as well, that is, in the half-year, by how much, it will be finally clear tonight.
No matter how strange it sounds, I see more problems in our spending sector, because the effectiveness of spending is a very serious problem in general, and we must definitely think about the institutional systems for solving this problem, because the effectiveness of spending is also very serious for economic activity, ensuring the income part of the budget. , is one of the key incentives. There is usually a wider focus and interest on the revenue side, I mean in public circles, but actually the cost side is also very important.
Also, what is special about today’s situation? in the budgetary sense, we are in the middle of the year, but in the political sense, the new year and the new period will soon begin, in connection with which concrete pre-election promises have been made. We have talked about large-scale capital investments, construction of hundreds of schools, hundreds of kindergartens, tens of reservoirs, thousands of kilometers of roads, and we must inevitably provide this. Also, business should see our determination and consistency to fulfill those promises in order to be properly positioned to carry out the process, because the government sets the political issue, and with our current systems, they are carried out by the private sector, in particular, tenders are carried out, etc.”
The Acting Prime Minister singled out another topic that the government should address, if not today, then later. “We are talking about improving our public procurement system, in which we have done a lot of work, but here we should also think about what other reforms are there that will make the public procurement system as efficient as possible. Because if we talk about the efficiency of the spending sector, we are first of all talking about the efficiency of the procurement system. How mobile is the procurement system, how effective is it, and how consistent is it with the political issues we have formulated? And here we need to have certain mechanisms in order to have the opportunity to organize the processes in a more operative way”, said Nikol Pashinyan, reminding that previously there was talk about the introduction of the main contractor institution, which will enable in many cases to make quick decisions and implement them faster. than planned.
“We have other problems in the area of spending. My research shows that there are companies that specialize in these topics. For example, the other day I faced a situation in one of the marzes, when a tender for the construction of a school has been announced, the funding is there, the project is there, and already, if I’m not mistaken, a legal battle has been going on for two years. In other words, in the border village, when the school should have already been built and put into operation, and the existing school is essentially in ruins, now the village, the children are suffering because two companies participating in the tender have initiated legal proceedings, and all the planned operation the deadlines have passed and it is not yet known when the school will be built.
I think that in these cases we should have a mechanism or make certain legislative and political regulations, because we have to explain to the children of that village: how is it that the project exists, the funding is there, the tender is announced, the winner is there, but the school is not being built? And if we don’t take measures, we may not build in the next 3-4 years. So there are such questions, and we have no right to linger any longer on these questions. We need to make decisions, and as a result of these decisions, make our spending sector more efficient,” Nikol Pashinyan emphasized.
Then the developments taking place in the economic sector, possible steps towards increasing tax revenues, increasing capital investments, and attracting quality, productive investments were discussed, in relation to which various recommendations and observations were presented.
Reference was also made to the implementation of the universal declaration system, the progress of measures aimed at simplifying and modernizing the regulations of the procurement sector, the developments in the construction sector, in particular, the issues related to the need for housing construction zoning within the framework of the income tax refund program.
Nikol Pashinyan emphasized the implementation of consistent, clear steps in the above-mentioned directions. The Acting Prime Minister emphasized that the government should make the policy to stimulate the economy more effective, including by creating opportunities for entrepreneurs to enter new markets. Nikol Pashinyan instructed the officials to start from today the work of attracting the relevant organizations needed for the construction of schools, kindergartens, reservoirs, roads, including from abroad, providing the necessary legislative solutions for this in the field of procurement. The Acting Prime Minister emphasized that it will be a special problem to ensure the implementation of high quality and appropriate standards in the above-mentioned construction works.