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Armenian officials plunder military funds

11 October 2019 12:57 (UTC+04:00)
Armenian officials plunder military funds

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

Armenian citizens have to pay out of their pockets for their country’s geopolitical ambitions and expansionism aspirations.

About three years ago Armenia set up the Military Insurance Fund under the ex-Defense Minister Vigen Sargsyan. Its function was to make payments to injured military personnel, as well as to the families of dead military personnel. Obviously, someone had to fill the fund, and the burden of payment was placed on the Armenian taxpayers.

Thus, each Armenian citizen had to pay 1,000 drams ($2.1) monthly to the fund. Naturally, the Armenian population did not endorse the law with enthusiasm. It would seem that the amount of money is not so big, but considering Armenia’s poverty, it is still money. This means that ordinary Armenians had to spend money on other things other than their own needs.

Later it turned out that the money collected in the Fund was not sufficient to cover all needs. Former Minister Sargsyan himself asked the people about raising funds, for which he was accused by begging of Armenians.

In March 2017, the Fund raised 398.3 million drams ($814,325). However, the expenditure plan was approved in the amount of 1.7 billion drams ($3.53 million).

Raising money from the Armenian population was successful, and on March 2019, the fund raised more than 14 billion drams (about $28 million), while total amount of compensation made up 941 million drams ($1.89 million).

After the "velvet" revolution, there was also disagreement around the law on compensations from this Fund. For instance, mothers of military personnel who died before 2008 demanded compensation, although the Fund served only those who died between 2008 and 2017.

Today, the fight surrounding the Fund has flared up again with renewed vigor. Discrepancies have recently been identified between the figures presented by the Prime Minister and those in the report of the Director of the Fund.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in August 2019 reported that in January-June 2019 compared to the same period of 2018, the fund received 347 million drams ($728,000) more. However, in reality, according to the Armenian media, this figure is 27 million drams, that is, almost 13 times less. The fund annually collects 600-700 million drams ($1.26 million-$1.47 million) less.

It was not the only case of manipulation with figures; the same thing happened with the number of the working population. It is no secret that Pashinyan loves to boast about creating the conditions for opening new jobs. So, Armenian PM stated that there are 606,000 registered workers in Armenia, although, the real number if 403,000.

Armenian media reasonably noted that these digital inconsistencies are the result of manipulation.

Thus, some steal, while others burden the population with taxes to earn political dividends for allegedly implementing reforms.

It is noteworthy that the meetings of the Fund are held in private. Although, Pashinyan himself, when he was an oppositionist, used to scold officials for their excessive secretiveness and for hiding from the press and civil society.

It simply means that post-revolutionary leaders have something to hide from their people.

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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

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