2024-04-16 15:31:29
“Luys” Foundation analyzed the 2023 the report on the implementation of the RA state budget in the first nine months.
Այսպիսով՝
Thanks to the positive endogenous factors that appeared as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict, the high economic growth recorded last year and at the beginning of this year is gradually slowing down. This circumstance should seriously concern the government, because, taking into account the current geopolitical developments, one should not exclude the possibility of such scenarios of changes in the external situation, which can neutralize or significantly weaken the influence of these favorable exogenous factors for the RA economy. Under these conditions, the government is expected to take effective steps aimed at maintaining the existing positive developments and mitigating the actual and possible negative consequences. Even more, if we take into account that in 2024 according to the draft of the state budget in 2024. for this, the government has targeted rather high, at least 7% economic growth.
2023 For nine months, the implementation of the budget deviated from the specified plan by 323.0 billion drams. In January-September, the budget actually had a surplus of 74.6 billion drams, while according to the specified plan it was planned to have a deficit of 248.4 billion drams. Since the government collected taxes from the economy on the one hand, but on the other hand, did not spend as much as planned, economic activity was restrained.
The state budget expenditures were underachieved in comparison to the specified plan both in terms of current and capital expenditures. The underperformance was much more significant in terms of capital expenditures. so, if compared to the specified plan, the current expenses were underachieved by 8.8%, then the underachievement of capital expenses is 42.6%. Underperformance of capital expenditures is a concern. by performing them, the state indirectly contributes to the growth of economic potential, and their underperformance (or even delay) neutralizes or at best delays, sometimes even makes the positive results expected from their performance untimely.
Underperformance has reached alarming proportions. In the tables of the report on the implementation of the state budget, the programs of the responsible bodies, which are the most significant in terms of the absolute amount of expenses, are presented in a separate line. The plans of all those responsible bodies have fallen short. In fact, it turns out that although money is planned and allocated in the budget for the given direction, however, the projects are not fully or partially implemented.
The biggest underperformance in absolute terms was recorded under the program “Supporting the Defense of the Republic of Armenia” implemented by the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia: 116.1 billion drams. Taking into account the current serious security challenges, this situation is particularly worrying, because it turns out that a relatively large amount of money has been allocated for defense purposes in the budget, but the planned works have not been carried out. Meanwhile, when presenting the 2023 budget, as an important advantage over previous years’ budgets, the current government emphasized the allocation of large sums for capital expenditures on defense.
There are serious problems in the state administration system in terms of cost planning and effective implementation of programs. Very often, the reason for budget underachievement is simply that clearly unrealistic indicators are planned in it. In addition, the “chronic” underperformance of capital expenditures, which has been recorded for years, indicates that the state administration bodies are not able to ensure the effective implementation of the programs. And this speaks of the insufficient level of state administration and the ineffective work of state bodies.
The full analysis is available here