2 minute read
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 28, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has explained the reason of the underperformance of capital spending.
“I would like to say for the record with what the capital spending underperformance is associated with. First of all, I’ve said this already for a few times – the fight against corruption,” Pashinyan told lawmakers in parliamentary committee debates of the 2020 state budget.
“If in the past the so-called kickbacks were a universally accepted reality, today it can’t be considered reality. I cannot rule out that such occurrences will happen, but officials involved in such occurrences must be sure in one thing, that today, tomorrow, in a week or in a month, anytime the [law enforcement] will come after them, and let no one doubt that they can avoid responsibility. And second of all, in terms of mid-term and long-term capital spending I see this kind of a problem: We have a certain problem of raising standards in our country. Because for example, look, as strange as it might seem, today the society is naturally expressing a big satisfaction online and everywhere regarding road construction. I would like to note that the road construction standard which is established in Armenia today, I am displeased with this standard and quality, although compared to the past we have huge changes in quality now, but we cannot agree on this standard and we must increase the standards,” the PM said, adding that he refers to all sectors.
“We must raise the quality standards of the government’s work, the quality standards of the parliament’s work, those of the local-self governing bodies, the police, the law enforcement system, the investigative bodies and so on. And we will coherently move forward on this way,” he said.
Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan