YEREVAN, AUGUST 10, ARMENPRESS. The logic of assistance provided by the government to the communities should change, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at the meeting with the local self-government representatives during his working visit to Tavush province, Armenpress correspondent reports.

“We should change the logic of help with the logic of joint work. Now understandably the government will do much more than it did previously, but what we are going to call it is very important. If we call it help, it’s another logic, if we call it a joint work, cooperation, in that case we deal with another situation”, PM Pashinyan said.

He said today there is such a situation that the government has money, but is unable to spend it in the communities. Pashinyan said today the government is ready to provide 10-15 billion AMD to the communities by a subvention program at the first stage.

“What do we have? It turns out that the communities are not ready to spend these sums for several reasons. The communities do not have respective money for having participation, in addition, they also don’t have respective programs in many cases, in other words, there is no vision on what concrete actions should be taken to ensure the community development. Why the communities don’t have money? Usually it’s said that the budget is less, but here another question arises, whether these sums are spent purposefully, whether the budget is used with the complete potential”, the PM said. “If we want to the budget to increase, we should use it effectively. This situation will not be tolerated. I don’t want tension, but those who will continue with the old logic, sorry, but nothing else remains for us to do than to arrest. We cannot tolerate the robbery. I invite all of you to a constructive work”, Pashinyan said, stating that he is the first recipient of his demands.

 Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan