10TH ALLOCATION BID TO BE SUBMITTED TO MCC APPROVED
Noyan Tapan
Dec 10, 2008
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 10, NOYAN TAPAN. At the December 10 sitting of the
Governing Council of Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) – Armenia state
nonprofit organization, the 10th allocation bid to be submitted to
the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) was approved. The sitting
was conducted by the Chairman of the Council, Armenian Prime Minister
Tigran Sargsyan.
The CEO of MCA-Armenia Ara Hovsepian said that by submitting this bid,
the organization envisages to receive financing of 6,811,305 dollars
from MCC for the first quarter (January-March) of 2009. The programmed
expenditures for the indicated quarter make 7,109,153 dollars.
The expenditures of the 10th allocation bid will be spent on the
following components: rural road rehabilitation, improved irrigation,
monitoring and evaluation, and program management and supervision. In
the words of A. Hovsepian, according to the current forecast data, the
cost of construction work financed at the expense of the government’s
allocations for the component "rural road rehabilitation" will reach
11,669,871 dollars (without VAT) at the end of the current quarter,
while the sum of the program’s actual and forecast expenditures for
December amounts to 28,081,321 dollars.
As for the work done in the reporting year, it was mentioned the
repair work of 24.5-km road sections in the south-west of Armenia
under the rural road rehabilitation program is being completed. At the
same time, the work envisaging repairs of 273-km road sections with
60.3 mln dollars under the road construction agreements of the first
package has begun. Construction of 3rd-category channels in 4 rural
communities was completed under the improved irrigation program. By
late 2008, the final designs of 6 main channels, 7 gravity irrigation
systems and 18 pumping stations will be ready for the construction
stage in all Armenian marzes, and the construction stage will begin in
2009. More than 18 thousand beneficiaries have been instructed so far
on internal management and high-quality agricultural produce under the
water-to-market component of the improved irrigation program. Under
this program, over 130 agricultural loans of a total of 1.5 million
dollars were distributed.
The allocation bid will be ratified by the chairman of MCA-Armenia’s
Governing Council, after which it will be submitted to MCC for
approval.