TIGRAN TOROSYAN SAYS HE DID NOT DISSOLVE

Lragir.am
23 Aug 06

Speaker Tigran Torosyan told news reporters August 23 that the changes
in the administration of the National Assembly he initiated were not
intended to dissolve what the former speaker Arthur Baghdasaryan
had created, "All was done for a single reason: as a speaker of
the National Assembly I am responsible for the quality of the
administration of the National Assembly and these steps were taken
out of this responsibility."

Tigran Torosyan undertook these changes because unlike the post of
deputy speaker of the National Assembly in the post of the speaker
of the National Assembly Tigran Torosyan has different duties,
"responsibility before the society and the society must give
an evaluation." Therefore, Tigran Torosyan does not evaluate the
activities of his predecessor, and since "I am neither a judge nor an
attorney", he does not answer the statements of certain representatives
of the Orinats Yerkir Party that the victims of Tigran Torosyan’s
reforms, who lost their jobs, are mostly members of this political
party. "There were statements that republicanization has started. The
dissolution of departments which have nothing to do with the activities
of the National Assembly is not republicanization and may lead to the
departisanization of the administration of the National Assembly,"
stated the Republican speaker of the National Assembly. He says the
dissolved departments have nothing to do with the activities of the
National Assembly. In the rest of cases different departments were
joined, the publishers and the press were joined, 38 people were
made redundant. Tigran Torosyan says in most cases the existence
of one department or another was not justified, for instance, the
problem of territorial management is the problem of the government,
and a department dealing with this does not have anything to do with
the National Assembly.

As a vivid example, Tigran Torosyan gave the example of the Center
for Armenian-Russian Interregional Cooperation NGO. The NGO founded in
2005 received a 20 m drams grant from the National Assembly. This year
another 20 m drams was to be allocated, the NGO received the first 10
m drams, the second 10 million was suspended by Tigran Torosyan. The
speaker of the National Assembly found out that all the Center did was
publication of the works by Avetik Isahakyan, organized the premier of
the film-opera "Norma" and other similar things. "In fact, publication
of works by Avetik Isahakyan is important but the National Assembly
cannot act as a donor of an organization," Tigran Torosyan says.

Before the news conference Tigran Torosyan had presented all this in
detail to the committees and factions of the National Assembly. There
were no objections. As it became clear after the question of the news
reporter, no representatives of Orinats Yerkir Party were present at
the meeting.