HOVIK ABRAHAMIAN: NO ONE HAS RIGHT TO SLIP HIS HAND IN STATE BUDGET’S POCKET. PARLIAMENT APPROVES 2009 PROGRAM OF ACTIVITIES OF CONTROL CHAMBER

Noyan Tapan

Dec 4, 2008

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 4, NOYAN TAPAN. The Armenian parliament on December
4 approved the 2009 annual program of activities of the Control
Chamber. The chairman of the Control Chamber Ishkhan Zakarain said
that the program includes manadory control of the government reports
on execution of the 2008 state budget and of the 2008 program of
state property privatization, as well as the conclusions on the
2008 annual report of the Central Bank of Armenia. Besides, the use
of state budgetary allocations and transfer of budgetary revenues by
several state bodies are subject to control. Among these bodies are the
Constitutional Court, the judicial department, the prosecutor’s office,
about 20 ministries and departments, and the regional administrations
of Armavir, Lori and Shirak marzes. The program envisages for the
first time the examination of purchases for state needs by the State
Procurement Agency. The 2009 program includes a number of themes which
were either not studied or studied partly in 2008, as well as themes
which were considered risky.

In 2009 the Control Chamber will control the use of credit resources
by 5 credit programs implemented with the support of foreign
states and international financial organizations. Besides, the
ministries of healthcare, nature protection, agriculture, transport
and communication, and urban development were selected and will be
supervised from the viewpoint of using state budgetary allocations
for a number of programs. The use of financial resources, including
off-budget ones (in particular, resources of "Yerevan" Fund) by
Yerevan municipality will be examined as well.

The National Assembly speaker Hovik Abrahamian said that the indicated
measures will contribute to transparency of the Control Chamber’s
work. He said it is unacceptable when several bodies conduct checks
at the same organization. In his words, budgetary resources should
be controlled and "no one has the right to slip his hand in the state
budget’s pocket".